Chapter 162 Tales Of Home

"So, tell me all the details!" I tried to remain calm, but hearing that my long-time husband, Ernst, was attacked, set off the worst scenarios I could imagine in my head. I'd been in a holo-meeting with Seven-Diamond and Dr. Lowell, the heads of the Asgard Forestry Project, when I got the alert from the transceiver implant behind my left ear. I interrupted the two scientists' dialogue with a curt `Something's happened to Ernst...' and ended the meeting. I saw the alarm in the `thal's face, and the concern in Persephone's eyes before their images vanished. I was pacing the small room in my apartment, which served as my office while I waited for the time-lag to pass, before I could get a reply from Tycho Deep on the Moon. Six minutes at this time of year...I would have gone crazy if it had been the twenty-one minute delay when Earth and Mars were at their farthest separation.