“What I’m telling you is an order. I don’t want to hear any more excuses… It’s a very critical matter! A matter of life and death! And if I don’t get there on time, you will be blamed for it!” Tirad says to him boldly. The officer needs time to speak to the boatmen. He needs at least till noon to figure something out. Tirad doesn’t stand there listening to the excuses he makes.

“That would be too long! I will get back in two hours. The speed boat must be ready by then!” Tirad says and hands the pre-payment coins to the officer and gets out of the booth with quick steps. Tirad enters the gate and walks along the surrounding wall to the east side. He has two hours to speak to Lealy, inform Dalia about her confirmed trip and to take a closer look at the floating refugee harbour. He hasn’t taken more than a hundred steps that he remembers he had forgotten to ask the guards about the dead, pregnant woman they had found three days back. He can do that when he returns for the speedboat. The route by the long stonewall is narrow and there are no one passing there except for the guards. He sees two guards trying to stop him but he just shows them his arm tattoo and passes along. He reached the east gate of the Island that used to open to a short dock before and now it has turned into a long, stretched, floating surface that goes on a few hundred meters into the sea. The gate is closed. If they open the gate, the refugees will rush towards it trying to get in to the main land. There are ten armed guards behind the gate. One of them stops Tirad, as he approaches the gate booth.

Tirad show the guard his mission papers signed by the Circle. He has to show it again to the head-guard. As soon as they find who he is, all the guards come to him, circling around him and beg him to do something about the refugees. What they want is for the Circle to put an end to the situation. They seem to have been under a lot of pressure since the refugees had come. One of them says they have to stop them climbing the wall in the middle of the night. Another one says they are scared that the refugees might attack the eastern gate trying to enter by force. Tirad assures them that they will take care of the matter very soon and the refugees shall return to their homes. The two guards slightly open the gate for Tirad, giving him enough room to slide through the door and step outside.

As soon as he sets foot on the docks, the refugee children surrender him. Their mothers come to scatter them away and see who the newcomer is and what he wants. Tirad finds himself caught between the many young and old women that circle around him. From their shaved heads, it’s clear that they are mostly fishers and divers and through their dirty shagged clothes, it is obvious that are not in good conditions. Tirad doesn’t have to introduce himself; his tattoo has said it all. They start talking at once, complaining about their unsuitable conditions. They interrupt one another, pushing each other trying to get closer to Tirad and speak. Tirad lowers his face trying not to look straight at any of them and only listen to what they have to say. Most of the women are half-naked, their bare breasts hang freely around their busts. Tirad feels uncomfortable, both for their nudity and the ruckus that makes him unable to hear their words correctly. They keep saying that they are hungry and thirsty. Oxan gives them a small share of water and fish in return for the human faeces they gather twice a week used for fertilisers. They have to boil the seawater and distil it to make drinking water but they don’t have enough fuel or the combustive material. They have to eat the fish uncooked and save their fires for boiling water.