"Nayyar non vult loqui de iudicio," Regulus Catreas said.
"English, please," Darcia requested. "If I am indeed asked to make this venture, I must at least look and feel the part."
"Nayyar still refuses to speak about his ordeal," the Regulus repeated, looking very solemn through the video feed on the wall. "Thus, we are no closer to learning the truth as to what happened between him and Lafaye."
Luckily he knows enough English to humor me.
Darcia nodded, self-consciously smoothing out the front of her Earth-styled dress as she rose to her feet. Nayyar's silence was not news to her. She had attempted to speak with him several times since his return from Earth, but the man wouldn't speak a word to anyone.
"Yes, I know," she said, walking to her tabletop potum tallus and tapping the silver disc three times. At her touch, the disc glow changed to pink, to light red, and then to red.
"I see that you are wearing Earth clothing," Catreas said. "Are you ready, then?"
She sighed, watching the hot beverage pour into her cup. If she told him the truth—that she was not ready—he would insist on postponing the trip, or perhaps canceling it altogether.
"As ready as I can be," she answered, turning toward the wall with a forced smile.
Catreas grunted, and said, "I suppose your lack of alacritas is to be expected. It is not every day one travels all the way to a distant planet in the hopes of saving over nine hundred quarantined people."
Darcia shook her head, hooking her fingers though the handle of the handle of the Earth-styled coffee mug, and raising it up curiously.
"That is not what concerns me," she said.
"What is it then?" he asked.
The video feed was becoming difficult to see—the daylight peeking through the window reflected harshly over the screen, causing a glare.
Taking her mug, Darcia walked over to her modulus tablet and tapped it awake. She slid the tint bar to a lower level, flicking her eyes to the windows and watching them dim just enough to stop the glare of daylight.
Seeing Catreas more clearly, she said, "A quarantine due to a disease is one thing, Regulus, but this is quite another. Typically, the sick are most welcoming to their doctor. Their malady—whatever that may be—is evident to them in some way, and they are eager to be rid of it. This...anger, however," she shook her head, "is problematic. Many are in denial that there even is a problem—feeling as though their negative emotion is under control. Worse, others are embracing the emotion—as though its suppression was some sort of mistake."
"What is your point?"
She looked at the monitor and said, "It's as if the emotion itself is somehow alive."
Catreas frowned, "Alive?"
Darcia sipped her drink and sat down, placing her mug onto a circular disc on the table. She frowned at the disc, trying to recall its name. She needed to remember it. How was she to properly integrate if she couldn't remember her lessons?
A coaster!
She smiled in delight as her training came back to her. On Earth, they often placed drinks on coasters, in an effort to preserve the table in some way. Perhaps from marks or indentations from the cup, or perhaps from damage due to the drink itself.
Their tables must be very delicate there.
"Darcia?"
"My apologies, Regulus," Darcia said, her attention snapping back to him. "By alive, what I mean is that the emotion itself has qualities akin to self-preservation. Some of those who feel anger may not want to simply give it up. It is the trap of centrum voluptas mentis."
"Yes, but our people have been thoroughly educated against such things," Catreas pointed out.
Darcia nodded and smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was one of irony. She had thought of little else since having been pulled into this crisis. All of the Caelans on Earth had been fully educated in the pitfalls of the mind. As a Dharma Praeceptor, she herself was a religious educator and as such had presided over such training many times.
"We can no longer count on that," Darcia said. "Otherwise they wouldn't be getting angry in the first place. No, we must assume that some sort of educational backsliding has taken place. The question is, how and why."
Catreas replied, "Some sort of event must have occurred—something that has shaken them, profoundly so."
"Event, or events," Darcia said pointedly, taking a sip of her drink. "The original theory was that the untimely death of Regulus Lafaye's wife triggered his anger, and from there it trickled downward. But it cannot be that simple. Besides which, reports of anger had occurred long before her death."
Catreas sighed heavily. "I can only hope that upon your arrival you can bring some clarity to the situation, Darcia. Because if you cannot, then—well, I don't know what other options we have. Our people are stranded there. The only way to bring them home safely is for you to get to the bottom of this, determine its cause, and propose a solution."
Darcia set her cup down, nodding solemnly at his point.
"I am going to contact Lafaye right now," Regulus Catreas declared. "I want him to prepare for your arrival—today."
"Today?" she asked, somewhat in shock.
"Yes, today" he repeated. "Pack your things Darcia. It's time to go to Earth."
