“Captain, we are being hailed,” announced the communications officer on shift from her station.

  “Relay message.”

  “This is local courier Dove, fleet 725, ship ID 9 10 3 41 hailing Divine Messenger. Requesting permission to board.”

  “Reason for intercept?”

  “They’ve come from Orbital Colony 6 28 19 in the Eros exo-system. Minister Amanda Capstone requests audience with her daughter, Emissary Abalone Shell on the White Beach.”

  “Her what?”

  “Daughter, sir.”

  The Captain muttered a dark oath under his breath and ran a hand through his beard. “Docking permission granted,” he said. “Lieutenant Grenlivt, with me to the shuttle bay.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The courier ship, Dove, nestled against the hull of Divine Messenger. Captain Havern and the second lieutenant waited at the local end of the interlock causeway. The hiss of pressure matching heralded the opening of the hatch. The second lieutenant relaxed ever so slightly. Their guests were human, limed in the washed out frailty of planet born too long in the void.

  A grey, once tall man stepped in front of his two companions, throwing out a wide black sleeve in an exaggerated bow. “It is our gracious pleasure to be permitted aboard your ship, Captain. I am Mr. Reed, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the displaced Colony of Theta Mars. My companions are the Honorable Ludsic and Capstone, Minister of Health and Finance respectively.”

  “I have little interest in who you are,” snapped the Captain. “Why are you on my ship? Divine Messenger flies on direct order of her Majesty, I am sure you are aware of the consequences of delaying an imperial courier.”

  “We mean you no delay, in fact, we humbly request permission to join your voyage party. We will send our transport away,” said Minister Reed.

  “Divine Messenger’s complement is a closed roster, request denied.”

  “With all due respect, sir, we have the documentation to refute that claim. On another matter, several of your passengers are our citizens. We reserve the right as representatives of their government to hold audience with them, to verify their wellbeing,” said Minister Ludsic, making his own, more subdued, flourish of his robe of office.

  The Captain pursed his lips diplomatically. If this were the privacy of the bridge, the second lieutenant knew he would have sworn again.

  It was of course a quandary. The letter of Divine Messenger’s official voyage duty did not exclude additional passengers outright, as the negotiations between the imperial relay and the Teeth of the Lion before outset had included the Scholar and the Journeywoman as acceptable passengers. Other Theta Martian expatriates were not expressly forbidden, therefore, these Ministers did have rights to board. And as they were Ministers, it did hold true that they were permitted audience with their colonists, as their direct representatives.

  Of course, the colonists they claimed to represent were here two individuals who openly denounced their governor’s legitimacy, and would not appreciate their presence. There was also, and perhaps more pressingly, the emissary. She too, they claimed as a colonist, as had been made clear over the relay while their ship docked. They stoutly refuted the Teeth of the Lion’s declaration that the ransomed children had been declared sovereign citizens of a free planet, rejecting the rule of empire.

  “At the very least, Captain,” came the voice of the third Minister, as yet unheard, softly from beneath a mourning veil. “Be swayed by the plea of a mother. I wish only to see my daughter. To assure myself that the child taken from me is alive, and lives well.”

  Sister Young unfolded her desk on the floor of the emissary’s chambers once again, as the woman brewed her bitter tea of blue flowers with too hot water. The three Theta Martian Ministers sat in straight black silence, cold as game pieces laid out on a board. Sister Young had spent long hours listening to their chamber meetings on the orbital during the negotiations with the Teeth of the Lion before Divine Messenger took on the emissary. They were not part of the relay, as the Teeth of the Lion communicated with the empire through an imperial courier deployment, but the transcripts, on his request, had been public. The Theta Martian Government had much to say in answer to his words, though none of their discussions were sent to Theta Mars.

  The Scholar and the Journeywoman huddled together, grey spectres of worry and outrage. They had asked by what means the Ministers had come to know the emissary’s genetic identity, and had been left to seethe around the mouthful, ‘as representatives in government, the colony leadership is privy to the physical details of each of their citizens.’

  The Captain remained, politely distanced, across the chamber from Sister Young, scowling dourly and prepared at any moment to order the Ministers off his ship. He too had not been pleased to discover that spying of this type had taken place aboard his vessel.

  The wyrm loomed, silent and watchful, as it ever was, providing an uncomfortable heat to the room that all in attendance studiously ignored.

  “We insist that you receive a full physical examination by the ship’s doctor,” demanded Mr. Ludsic, the Minister of Health.

  “No,” said the emissary over the billowing steam rising from her cup.

  “We will have a full record made of whatever harms that bastard has inflicted upon you—no?” the Minister paused with nearly full drawn breath in open mouthed surprise, then continued. “Why ever not? You have suffered long enough, deprived of civilized medical assessment, you need not linger in primitive isolation any longer.”

  “Surely you don’t believe James wouldn’t have shared what our doctors inflicted on him, do you, Minister?” said DuCourt quietly. “Don’t you suppose she might have reason to distrust the profession?”

  The Minister of Health pressed thin lips together in a hard white line. “Yes, we shall have to work to assure you of our utmost sympathy to your plight, emissary.” He dipped his head in a sharp bow. “On my honour and station, I swear we seek only to right the wrongs committed against you. You need have no hesitation to call upon myself for aid.”

  The emissary made no remark.

  “We wish to know of the separatist’s stance on re-integration, does the Teeth of the Lion intend to rescind his ban on colonial occupation?” asked Mr. Reed, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

  “The Teeth of the Lion has no position on immigration.”

  The Minister of Foreign Affairs tsked loudly, “no, I suppose he doesn’t, as he isn’t in any position of governance. So the farce continues even now? That Empress of his, then, what does she say?”

  “The Empress of Theta Mars is in seclusion, she has no position on immigration.”

  “No position?” questioned Mr. Reed. “we are to understand then, that she would have no opinion if ships were to make planet fall presently? She would allow us back and not even deign to stir from her burrow?”

  “The terms of the Expulsion have not changed, Minister.”

  Mr. Reed sighed in aggravation, casting glances sideways at his companions. “How long do we intend to let that lunatic tiger-tamer jerk our colony around? Even now he toys with us, by sending this brainwashed proxy.”

  “You forget our errand’s purpose, Honourable Reed,” said the Minister of Finance, pushing back the heavy gauze of her veil. She met the gaze of the emissary with brown eyes, red rimmed from chronic infection. They were the same shape and hue, but held no burning heat. “Hello child, do you perchance remember me?”

  “You are Amanda Capstone, daughter of Joseph Capstone, Inheritor of Capstone Industries.”

  “Yes, and you are Liwellynn Capstone, my daughter.”

  “No,” said the emissary, her tone flat as a school child reciting. “We are the daughter of the Inferno That Consumes All, the Empress of Theta Mars. We are Abalone Shell on the White Beach.”

  Silence lingered in the chamber. The Journeywoman and the Scholar were nearly vibrating with some indistinguishable emotion. The Captain leaned forward as if halfway to standing. Sister Young turned over her page and her graphite whispered across in new lines. Minister Capstone lifted her cup and sipped at her bitter tea. “Of course, my apologies, I was mistaken. Is this Theatian Jasmine? It has been too long since I had a proper brew of it. The plants do not flourish on the orbital.”

  “That is a pity,” said the emissary. To Sister Young it did not look as though she thought it was.

  “My father enjoyed this tea very much,” said Minister Capstone. “He was the first to attempt to export the living plants. Too precious to hoard, he told me, that was his philosophy regarding everything Theta Mars bestowed upon us.”

  “Not too precious to profit from, we understand.”

  “Yes, everyone needs to make a living somehow.”

  “The jasmine included.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The Minister smiled. “You sound like him. James, I mean, not your grandfather. So serious, very grave. Do you also write those inscrutable fyre poems?”

  “We do.”

  “I’m sure you’d tell me a human mind is incapable of understanding them? That was his lament, I recall, while he was at the estate, preparing for the exhibition.”

  “Not at all,” said the emissary. “A human mind is entirely capable of comprehension and of composition. All that is required is education.”

  “And were you so educated, Liwellynn?”

  “Our guardians are very wise, and our mother dedicated. We came to know.”

  The Minister of Foreign Affairs cleared his throat, “Joseph Capstone was unaccounted at the Expulsion. Does he reside on the planet’s surface?”

  “Joseph Capstone is dead.”

  “You would spin us Haddock’s story of justice and retribution?”

  “It is the truth.”

  “Haddock’s truth has proven insufficient.”

  “We understand.”

  “Do you claim to have alternative evidence?”

  “We do not seek to argue against your beliefs,” said the emissary. “It is not our duty to enlighten you.”

  “So you mean to say that you, an emissary, on a diplomatic mission, will give no testimony?”

  “We will speak with Mozark VII.”

  “Truly that maniac has gone too far,” hissed the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “Here we are, parlaying with a misguided child, raised to believe herself—the daughter of an Empress—beholden to no authority but the supreme ruler of the universe! She will speak to Mozark! She has been indoctrinated! Infected with that madness that brought the ruin of our colony!”

  “We do not recognise Mozark VII’s authority over Theta Mars. Our planet is sovereign.”

  “Sovereign!” spat Mr. Reed.

  “Enough!” said DuCourt, shaking hand clasped tightly by her husband. “What do you want, Honourable Ministers? To spit bitter words at an innocent—”

  “Innocent! She colludes with the wyrm-king!” interrupted Mr. Reed.

  “She was taken as an infant, you would not fault a child raised among pirates for believing the righteousness of theft!” DuCourt countered.

  “I—she is only what he has made her to be—and he himself a pirate—a mouthpiece for a coward too afraid to leave his birth-grav!”

  “A coward? For knowing that the moment he left atmosphere your lot would have him gagged and in chains, or his ship shot down?”

  “He is a criminal! The blood on his hands is enough to drown him in, and I, for myself, would see it done!”

  “Still you do not see what blood was kept in its vessels, what red was spared that should have been poured out for black. Even now you do not fathom how lucky we are that James still believed our kind worth sparing,” said DuCourt, voice low. “She held us in no such esteem.”

  “I will not hear this prattle again! There is no civilization of wyrms. There is no Empress!” shouted the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “Haddock is mad! In his delusion he sicced his tame beasts on us, to untold human loss. Now we sit on the ground and grovel at the pleasure of his mind poisoned initiate? I shall not entertain any more curdled notions!”

  “Please, Honorable Mr. Reed,” said Minister Capstone quietly. “To ignite old grievances and tear open old scars is not our purpose.”

  “Why are you here, then, Capstone?” asked DuCourt.

  Minister Capstone looked to the emissary. She had not spoken while DuCourt and the Minister of Foreign Affairs played out a twenty five year long argument. She had taken a sip of her tea, and watched the continuance of the feud. “I came to offer you asylum on the orbital. You need not return to your imprisonment.”

  “We do not accept the offer,” said the emissary.

  “You have no wish to live amongst your own kind?” Capstone asked.

  “On Theta Mars, we do.”

  “You,” she paused, swallowing. “You were raised well?”

  “The promise the Inferno gave you has been upheld. We are safe, well loved, and content.”

  “Promise?” interjected Sister Young. Ministers Reed and Ludsic jumped, as though they had forgotten her presence.

  “Ah, Sister,” said Capstone with a faint smile. “So good of you to join us. The record is coming along nicely, is it?”

  “Please, tell me of this promise,” she said, her graphite continuing to pace along the page.

  “My Liwellynn was seized the night the estate was burned,” said Capstone.

  “The date Haddock claimed he killed your father?” asked Mr. Ludsic. “You did not say you were present.”

  “I was not, George and I had gone to the opera and left our child with her grandfather,” Capstone continued. “They met us on the road as we returned. I had never seen a living one before.” Her eyes traced up the iridescent flank of the wyrm as it sat behind the emissary. “It was the strangest thing, one moment, open gravel in the twilight, the moons, blue setting and red rising, then they were there. Three of them. One a dark amber, one like polished brass, and her, red as the sunrise.”

  “Minister, your testimony—why have you never told us this?” asked Mr. Ludsic, a faint purple swell at his neck rising splotchily to his cheeks.

  She waved airily. “Oh, what was there to tell, really? James stood at her side, our baby cradled against that ghastly scar, and told us the horrible stoy—everyone had heard it by then, father had assured me it was baseless slander. She… she made it known to us that it was not, and she gave us her promise…” Capstone gazed at the emissary, eyes glossy. “And then, as they had come, they left. You understand I’m sure that it was nothing really, of purpose to the courts. A conversation between parents—mothers. But I had to know—Liwellynn, to see—just this once—that you were loved by her, as she promised me you would be.”

  “We understand,” was the emissary’s reply.

  “Liwellynn, my child—were you? She has not lied to me, has she?” asked Capstone, a frantic undertone creeping through her words.

  “Would you like to know, Minister Amanda Capstone?” the emissary asked. The Minister nodded fervently.

  A gleaming spur of bone appeared in the emissary’s hand. The Captain swore and began to rise. DuCourt and Felsdam keened in unison some unintelligible lament. The Ministers Reed and Ludsic, continuing to swell with indignation, suddenly deflated and shrunk back.

  The wyrm moved, crouching low to receive the puncture of the spur. The woman put it to Minister Capstone’s lips, where she had fallen forward on her knees, hands on the flooring.

  A black drop landed gleaming on her tongue. She rocked backwards, veil pooling on the ground behind her. Shivering spams crawled across her limbs, the emissary hovering above her, with burning eyes as witness, empty, animal.

  The other Ministers were shouting, the Captain, who had stood and moved forward, now froze as he stared up the line of armoured plates to the gleaming eyes of the wyrm. The animal stood halfway curled around the emissary and Minister Capstone. Its mouth slightly agape, barbed black teeth shining in dark gums.

  DuCourt murmured and blubbered, and Felsdam nodded convulsively, clinging to the trembling form of his wife.

  The wyrm trilled, a deep harmonious sound that would have shaken the room, if it were not aboard a void rated voyager star ship. The ministers fell into outraged silence. Felsdam and DuCourt wept as statues. The Captain, Sister Young could see, breathed deeply, and a touch too fast.

  Her graphite, she found, had smeared a long dark score across her recyc. Her shorthand ending abruptly at: CAP—b/t parents. Mothers.

  Sister Young had recorded at banishments, retributive maimings, and executions. She had observed the aftermath of battles, accidents, and animal attacks. She had viewed the sacred rites of myriad colonies. She had read the accounts from Theta Mars.

  Minister Capstone lay curled on her side on the flooring, shoulders shaking. The Captain stepped back and the wyrm returned to its habitual towering seat behind the emissary. The woman knelt by her tea service. “You will have another cup, Minister?” she asked.

  “Y-yes, thank you,” came the quavering voice of Capstone from within the tumbled folds of her robe of office.

  A tense quiet held over the too hot chamber as water was boiled. The Minister collected herself and regained her seat, straightening her robes and her veil. Mr. Ludsic handed her a kerchief, a look of the betrayed and horrified on his face.

  “We understand that the Ministers would accompany us to our audience with Mozark VII,” said the emissary as she offered the refilled cup to Minister Capstone. “Theirs would be welcomed company, if the Captain also agrees?”

  The Captain nodded stiffly, “as you are in favour of it, I make no objections.”

  “If I may ask,” began Sister Young.

  The wyrm hissed without turning its head to her, and the woman snarled flatly, “you may not.”

  “Your offer is gracious, Abalone Shell, we accept,” said Capstone quietly over the lip of her cup, eyes diffusely shining as she stared at the emissary. “I hope we may share many conversations throughout this journey.”

  “It is amenable to us,” the emissary dipped her head. “At this time, we wish solitude. Our guests may depart.”

  In the crowded passageway, Mr. Reed rounded on Capstone. “Minister? What is the meaning of this? You take their poison here? When our cause is so dire?”

  “This testimony you reveal,” added Mr. Ludsic, “you admit that you have been, since before the Expulsion, under the influence of that madman’s psychoactives?”

  “I demand you explain yourself at once!” chirped Mr. Reed, “you understand of course that this is treasonous?”

  “You cannot fathom what you so vehemently denounce!” hissed DuCourt. “She faced the truth and she received it! Showing more courage than you and your wool-eyed cronies ever have!”

  “Captain, sir,” said Capstone softly, a hand against the wall. “I am indisposed at present. Are there quarters aboard I might make use of to rest?”

  “Of course. I shall guide you there personally,” said the Captain, offering her his arm, and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. The Ministers Ludsic and Reed followed after them, grumbling between themselves of lunacy, delusion, and treachery.

  “What was done to the Honorable Capstone?” Sister Young asked of the Scholar and the Journeywoman who shared with her the echoing stillness of the passage, refreshingly cool after the stifling heat of the emissary’s chambers.

  “Do you truly not know, Sister Young?” snarled DuCourt. “Oh reader of testimonies and paragon of accurate accounts?”

  “Hush Maddie, the Sister is owed no harsh words from us,” Felsdam soothed. He looked up and met Sister Young’s eyes. “It is in the ichor, Sister. It can carry intent and truth.”

  “So I have heard, and yet accounts of this are few, and the accounts of empty acid are many.”

  “Can, Sister, can is the key. They choose to share, or they do not. Our plight then is that for so long they have chosen silence.”

  “And if it does not speak true? If it is used to lie and deceive?”

  “The blood cannot lie, Sister Young,” he turned and led his wife away, “it can only show the truth. The absolute truth.”