Before
It takes the man days to find the right place.
The plant is not like other plants. It doesn’t thrive in the sun. So he avoids open stretches of land: the sprawl of deserts, sunlit meadows, and even the dappled light of a forest floor.
The man regrets not being able to linger.
The Cloistered Planet is more beautiful than he imagined it would be.
He’d thought of it as a barren place, a place where people had chosen familiarity and ignorance over knowledge and growth.
But even from afar, it was beautiful—-the deep blue of its oceans, the swell of its continents.
He’s seen planets overtaken by cities, planets where civilization can only survive in remote corners, planets that can’t grow anything at all. This one is a jewel by comparison.
He wishes he could wander its surface forever.
But he came with a job to do, and so he does it, finding dark, shaded places and testing the soil for compatibility.
When the right spot appears, it’s anticlimactic—-just a small cave in a rocky stretch of land, not too far from the coast of whatever continent he landed on.
He finds a patch of soft earth and digs a deep hole there, in the dark, and unwraps the plant so that he can nestle it in the ground.
Then he reaches into his pocket for a knife and digs it into his fingertip.
Blood wells up from the wound and he holds his finger over the base of the plant, where the foreign soil intermingles with its native soil.
A few drops fall before he sits back on his heels and sighs.
“I’m sorry to leave you here,” he says. “But I did my best to make sure you would be safe.”
The plant remains still, its leaves drawn up into the teardrop shape that seems to be a protective response to the environment. It almost feels like a judgment.
The man stands, picks up his shovel and the cloth he wrapped around the sun--shy leaves, and walks toward the cave entrance. Just before emerging into the brilliance of day, he turns back to see that the plant has unfurled just a little, so it glows soft green.
The man smiles, and leaves the cave.
What he sees when he emerges isn’t what he expected: his little hopper ship, perched on a lonely patch of grass in the middle of nowhere--in--particular. The ship is still there, yes, but pacing in a circle around his craft . . . is a woman.
He goes still. He’s not supposed to interact with the local population.
Hundreds of years ago, the people of this planet didn’t respond to the invitation to join the rest of the evolved worlds, which means they’re supposed to be left alone.
But they share a common—-and relatively recent—-ancestor, so they look the same as him, work the same way he works.
And his research survey suggested that people on this planet speak quite a few languages.
So there’s no way for her to know that he’s from elsewhere unless he does something obvious to give it away.
“Hello,” he says to her, knowing she won’t be able to understand.
She wears sturdy, dusty boots and clothes the same light brown as the land that surrounds them. Her hair is pulled back, revealing a strong, square jaw. And she’s carrying a sword—-he really should have noticed that first.
He puts up his hands to show her he’s not holding any weapons.
“What are you doing here?” she says, and his blood runs cold.
She’s speaking a language he knows. Her accent is off, of course—-some words are barely intelligible, and the form of “you” she uses is archaic. But he pieces the sentence together anyway.
“You speak Aczeran?” he says.
How is it possible that this woman speaks Aczeran? A language can’t develop the same way on different worlds by happenstance. If she speaks Aczeran . . . it has to be because someone brought it here.
She frowns at him.
“Is that a dialect of Talusar?” she says. “Where are you from? The eastern continent?”
The man doesn’t know how to answer. Even stranger than the woman knowing Aczeran is her not knowing that she knows it. What did she call her language—-Talusar?
The woman taps the side of his ship with her sword to get his attention.
“Ileth Vidar won’t like hearing that a spy sent by the emperor’s son is flying so close to her territory,” she says. “And you know what she’ll like even less? Knowing he’s been developing an advanced ship like this one.”
He says, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. I’m not a spy. Certainly not for the son of your emperor.”
The woman narrows her eyes at him.
There’s something appealing about her face, he thinks. Something strong and polished as glass.
“I swear it,” he says quietly.
“Oaths mean nothing to me,” she replies. “Show me proof, or lose your head.”
He looks at his ship, parked right behind her. He can show her the navigation records, but he’s not sure she’ll believe what she sees.
“If you think I’m not serious about you losing your head, you’re making a severe miscalculation,” the woman says.
“Oh, I have no doubt,” he replies.