Theta Mars was rediscovered long after its loss. The terraforming systems had suffered numerous deviations from design that had not received corrective attention. The seeded life on the planet had bent to natural evolution, giving rise to a biology that was wholly unique.

  -Abalone Shell on the White Beach, A New History Of Theta Mars

  The doors to the emissaries quarters closed, leaving the Captain, the second lieutenant, Sister Young, Scholar Felsdam and Journeywoman DuCourt in the passageway. They had requested solitude, and had given no time at which they would be accepting visitors.

  “I would suggest a meeting presently, between us all,” said Sister Young. “To discuss impressions.”

  Divine Messenger had many rooms designed for meetings. One was quickly chosen and all who had attended the embarkment of the emissary, with the exclusion of the shuttle pilot and the engineer, were seated around a circular table, finished with real wood, in a comfortable room painted foliage green. The sun lights in the ceiling had been partially covered to insinuate a roof of slats. Ship grown tea was provided, served by the Captain as the highest official in attendance.

  “She seemed alright, considering her upbringing,” said the second lieutenant in response to Sister Young’s questioning of the emissary’s behaviour on the shuttle flight.

  The second lieutenant was referring to the fact that the human woman they had all met today had been taken hostage as an infant and raised in isolation from mankind. Young had noted that the woman looked healthy, well fed and strong. She spoke and moved with confidence, even among unfamiliar people and in an unfamiliar landscape. The worst had not befallen the ransomed children, as had been feared and outcried by their government in the early days post expulsion, that they would be raised as prisoners, starved and mistreated, or eaten. The colonists had petitioned to be allowed to return to their planet, to rescue their children, to seek vengeance for the loss of life they had suffered. The Empress had ruled to wait.

  Theta Mars had been contacted, but for twenty five years, they had not returned any message to the universe. The arrangements for the emissaries to meet with Mozark VII was the first and only communication they agreed to.

  “Who ever taught her trade pidgin knew it well enough,” continued the second lieutenant. “It’s a bit stiff though, could have been nerves. The shuttle seemed to put her on edge.”

  “James would have taught her,” said Journeywoman DuCourt, shifting her hands around her cup. The older woman’s face looked tired and strained. Worry draped heavily over her shoulders. She and her husband were scientists and historians. In the wake of the Expulsion, they had devoted their lives to seeking the buried truth hidden in the falsified records kept by the Society for Understanding’s Theta Martian Branch. DuCourt had known the man cited as the catalyst of disaster personally, before he had taken on the mantle of the Teeth of the Lion. Journeyman James Haddock, of the Wyrm Observation Corp. “They probably speak an idiolect of it among themselves. I don’t think any of the children were verbal when they took them.”

  “I think she probably learned that other tongue first, it’s in her accent,” the second lieutenant added.

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  “What other language?” asked Sister Young. A sheaf of note covered recyc and a graphite wand lay on the table before her. She had not touched her tea.

  “She used wyrm speak on the shuttle?” asked Scholar Felsdam, his hand creeping along the table towards his wife’s. They met in the space between them. Neither person had looked to see that the other had been reaching for them and they did not flounder or grasp air. Sister Young had watched them perform similar coordinated actions throughout the voyage. It fascinated her to observe the phenomena in person.

  The couple had both been part of an experimental education programme, held in the months before the Expulsion, run by three teachers referred to as the Triad. It was believed that they were wyrms, likely the cohort of the Empress herself. Something happened to the two scholars during this time. Both had written extensively on it, though sister Young remained sceptical, as she did to all descriptions of the supernatural. A scar marked DuCourt’s hand. The punctures were indicative of a bite. Felsdam’s teeth were greyish and pitted, the enamel corroded, and his voice held a persistent rasp.

  “This wyrm speak is the official communication of the people of Theta Mars?” asked Sister Young.

  “Yes,” said Felsdam. “We were taught it briefly, before the Expulsion. The emissary is likely fluent.”

  “Her clothing and possessions, those are products of local industry?” Sister Young asked. What went unstated was if they could have been procured from an unsanctioned landing on the planet. Though Theta Mars had been monitored, it was not impossible that illegal craft might have tried to make contact with them.

  “Reminants of pre-Expulsion craft, there is likely no current industry on the planet,” answered Felsdam.

  “The wyrm, is it a known individual?” asked the captain. What went unstated was if it had proven itself willing to commit violence against humans.

  “No, she is young. I would guess from a clutch hatched at almost the same time as the Expulsion, if not slightly before,” Felsdam explained. “But, Sister,” he looked to his wife, who hunched around her tea, staring into the steam. “There is something else.”

  “What is it, Scholar?” asked Young, looking up from her shorthand.

  DuCourt pulled her eyes away from contemplation of her tea cup. “I have reason to believe that the woman and the wyrm are linked.”

  A heavy atmosphere settled over the table. The captain, who had only just taken his seat, froze with his cup halfway to his lips.

  Sister Young set down her graphite. “Are you quite certain of this, Journeywoman?”

  DuCourt nodded, “I am.”

  Sister Young made a discrete motion of her hand to the captain. The second lieutenant was promptly dismissed.

  “How?”

  “It is in her movements.” A shiver of something remembered passed through her and her husband. “A synchronicity. Only he moves in that way.” Sister Young decided it would be inopportune to remark on it.

  “Is there any way to verify your suspicions?” Sister Young asked.

  “She will tell us herself, I suspect,” said Felsdam. “If we ask her.”

  The meeting was adjourned. Sister Young remained at the table in the empty room to finish her account of both the embarkment and the meeting. The suspicions of the expatriates would need to be confirmed. The emissary would at some point agree to speak with her.

  In the objective mindstate of her order, it did not matter who Theta Mars had sent to speak on their behalf. Young would listen, learn, and record. She did not sympathise with the demeanor, one almost of awestruck cowering, that the expatriates held. She was quite familiar with all documentation of the Theta Martian disaster, as was expected of her in her role representing her order here on Divine Messenger.

  Sister Young had never met the Empress of Theta Mars.