Zesiro, Goddess of the Floating Nile

(September 22, 1925 – in synchronous orbit over the Weimar Republic)

Taxchan awakens in perfect agony and gasps audibly as he feels his body slowly healing. Golem is standing overhead, manipulating panels and holograms as before. "We are here," he says. The Golem's limbs are twisted pillars of organs and muscles. The feathers sticking out from his calves mark the origin of the stolen saurian meat. A tongue formed of heart tissue pushes more words through lips made of sphincter. "I saved your planet."

Taxchan hisses madly and gutturally as its intestines drag across the rugged soil and back into its body. Then there is a light inside its skull and an intrusive voice. Who are you? It is in its head, clear as a birdsong. Unable to pull a thought together, Taxchan allows this new intruder to taste its pain. It sends emotion in lieu of words –
broadcasts something bestial –
absolute fury –
bloodsoaked –
something that is in a killing mood.

There is a delay, just long enough for the dinosaur’s universal exit-hole to knit back together. Now the internal organs are beginning to sort themselves out. Taxchan regards his enemy with expressionless red and black eyes. Orange war-feathers rise on the back of his neck. It hisses, "Golem."

My child, what troubles you? The voice plays like an echo in Taxchan’s forebrain that seems to jangle around and fall into place way back there, way back in the ancient crocodile components of the brainstem.

The response is a suite of crisp and troubling feeling: invasion and desperate frustration.

"It is done," Golem says, "your planet is in a new dimension. Soon I wish you to kill me, so I can travel to the surface of the only planet with life."

Taxchan pushes his desires down the open psionic channel" A need for scents and moving things to snatch at.

The internal voice rings again. She has a deep, unfamiliar accent, but her elegance and empathy draws near to his heart. Where are you, that we might assist you?

Surges of suspicion. A word – "Who –"

Golem speaks. "Kill me now."

– and Taxchan cannot help but to channel the sudden shift in attention and passion. Rage surges through the psychic conduit. Lusty violence floods the channel.

The voice tries to interrupt, I am your goddess, my child, but fails to be heard in the face of such an unabashed bath of slaughter and anger.

The rage eventually gives way to gluttony, and then to feelings of satedness and curiosity. It takes a while, but eventually Taxchan pushes a question through to the woman. The words have the psychhic resonance of birdsong. "Now. Who are you?
"My goddess?"

My domain is all scorpions, reptiles, and venomous creatures. They are my children.

Taxchan’s resonance is like purring, "Then I am among your brood countless times over."

But this is the first time I have encountered one of my children that thinks as I do. Come to me, so that we can speak in person. Shall I send my servants to fetch you?

Taxchan grasps the situation. In this new universe, beyond the cellular sky, there is another ship, and it is hailing Mu Merai. On that ship is yet another unique being – this one a mother to vermin, but a dignitary of galactic importance. The crowded feelings that Taxchan channels to her dance outward from Taxchan’s mind like flashes and staccatto notes. Then frustration returns.

"Yes. Send them." Birdy resonance, claws looking to snatch. "Send them to me here."

Oblivious to the danger of sending lesser beings into the presence of the stone of forms while in his war-form, the voice assures Taxchan, You will know them for they bear my mark.

"Yes." Confusion. Politeness remembered in the emptiness of space. There will have to be a signal, or else Mu Merai will not allow their vessel to pass through the membrane. Stretching its mind into technologies and memories of other races not meant to be harnessed into a bird-brained Utahraptor, Taxchan strains to send a final message to the goddess. "They. Will. Send. A beacon to 012367686mHz. On approach." The meeting was set.