The senior Jahul Emissary was one of the three who had simply put on their spacesuits and thrown themselves into the ship’s backwash while everyone else slept. It left Esteei, the only remaining Jahul on the ship, in charge of an ill-fated mission nobody wanted anyway. Now, staring out at the clammy, glistening black landscape spread out before him, Esteei wondered if he should have done the same. The entire planet was covered with mold. The only areas clear of the glistening ebony organism were along the beaches, where their ship now rested. The rolling black waves halted at the highest flood line, leaving about five rods of shoreline where Esteei and his envoy could set up for their turn-long stay. It was a pointless gesture. There were no beings here for Esteei to make contact with. Anyone could see the only thing that lived here was mold. Endless miles of mold. Grimacing, Esteei stepped back onto the ship to fill out the death reports. # Crown’s peers buzzed with conversation. The ship had descended at an angle perpendicular to the ground, as the Philosophers had thought it might. It meant their visitors were well beyond the aero-based technologies, as they predicted. In fact, everything about their visitors had been theorized long in advance…except for the way they looked.
