I would like to know how she kidnapped you, Troi said. She doesn’t seem that keen on revenge.
Virox sent a wave of exasperation. My fault. I got rusty.
“Why should we trust what you tell us?” Worf asked.
Thuvetha smiled. “You shouldn’t.”
Worf let out a loud, frustrated sigh as Thuvetha’s grin just widened.
The Klingon looked at Troi.
“She’s not lying,” Troi said. “She’s more aggravated at Bryt the Baron than she is at us.”
“True,” Thuvetha purred. “I have a children’s toy for a weapon and if you were to search my ship, you’d find it full of perfectly legitimate medical supplies.”
“We know that you stole the treasures,” Worf said.
“If I tell you everything I know about Bryt, you’ll just forget about the theft?” She smiled sweetly. “I’m just some simple Romulan off a colony world.” She spread her hands out.
A lie, Virox thought.
“How long have you been waiting for Bryt?” Troi asked.
“You mean you don’t know exactly when I arrived here?”
“Answer the question,” Worf snapped.
“Six hours.” Thuvetha settled back on the sofa. “You might wait less. I wonder what they’ll do when they figure out you don’t actually have any latinum.”
“Oh?” Troi said.
“Is Starfleet replicating latinum these days?”
“Enough.” Worf’s voice was a menacing whisper. “Tell us what you know. If we are able to retrieve the items”—he took a deep breath and spoke the next part slowly, as if it was a threat—“then I will see about getting you a pardon for their theft.”
“Bryt’s criminal enterprise rose to prominence ten years ago,” Thuvetha said. “Ferengi always have the most interesting… interests.” She grinned. “I kept hearing his name: Bryt the Baron just sold a chest of Gorn gold, Bryt the Baron bought out the Fa’ud gang, Bryt the Baron purchased the Essar ruins.” She laughed. “Derak reached out to me about a job on Betazed, I thought why not?” She winked at Virox. “It would be a perfect time to visit an old friend.”
“Who is Derak?” Worf asked.
“Oh.” Thuvetha waved her hand around. “Bryt’s little mouthpiece. He’ll be bustling in here eventually to talk to you.”
“So it’s true,” Troi said. “We won’t speak with Bryt directly.”
Thuvetha looked at Troi for a moment, then burst into laughter, her disdain apparent. “No one sees Bryt. No one. Derak doesn’t even see Bryt. He talks to him through a combadge.”
“How does Derak know who he’s speaking to?” Worf asked.
“Who cares?” Thuvetha said. “Maybe Derak’s running the whole operation, I don’t know. And I don’t care. Someone’s behind it. Someone’s stockpiling latinum.” She glowered. “And not paying their contractor.”
Unusual for a Ferengi, keeping his identity secret, Troi thought. Maybe Bryt isn’t a Ferengi, but someone who wanted to convince everyone he was. Why?
“The three treasures of Xiomara,” Virox asked. “Why would a Ferengi—”
Troi felt that Virox already knew the answer; she was just toying with the Romulan.
Of course I am. Toying with Romulans was my job for over a decade.
Get out! It’s rude, Troi said, not even bothering to try to hide her irritation.
“There are buyers who are interested in cultural artifacts.” Thuvetha shrugged. “I have to say, your disguises aren’t half bad.” She looked appraisingly at Worf. “A Klingon is pretty unusual.”
“Is there anything else?” Worf said. “Anything useful?”
“Bryt’s trying to rip me off,” Thuvetha said. “Useful enough for you?”
A chime sounded through the room, and the Ferengi-style door slid open. Out stepped an exceedingly well-tailored Ferengi carrying a padd tucked under one arm. Troi assumed this was Derak.
“Ah,” he called out. “My buyers. How lovely to meet you!”
He glided forward, clearly avoiding Thuvetha.
“Where’s my payment?” she asked.
The Ferengi stopped, drew himself up. “I told you, Bryt is working on it.”
“Fifty bars of latinum,” Thuvetha said.
“Madams,” he said, bowing slightly to Deanna and Virox. “My name is Derak. I will be working with you today to find an arrangement that meets all of our needs.” He turned to Virox. “Are you Amica?”
Virox stood up from her chair. “That is correct,” she said softly. “My associate, Dorota, our bodyguard.”
Derak checked on his padd. “Oh, marvelous, marvelous.” He peered up at Troi. “Your names aren’t in our database.”
“Yes,” Troi said. “We had a—disagreement with our previous patron and decided to strike out on our own.” She smiled sweetly, aware of Thuvetha’s amusement radiating off her.
“Excellent.” Derak plastered on an unctuous grin. “Would you like to see the artifacts?”
Troi felt Worf’s interest pique behind her, and a surge of hopeful relief.
“Of course,” Virox said, and Derak led them back to the small door, which he opened with the press of his palm. Thuvetha glared at him, her arms crossed. He ignored her.
“This way,” he said, and Worf stepped up in front of the women, mek’leth at the ready. Derak eyed it nervously. “You won’t be needing that,” he said as Worf ducked through the doorway.
They were standing in a large, sleek showroom. Items were displayed behind faint shimmers of force fields: weapons, jewelry, antiques, technology Troi didn’t recognize. What she didn’t see were the three treasures.
“I don’t see them,” Virox said sharply.
Derak chuckled apologetically. “Forgive me. We’re keeping those particular items in a special storage room. They’re quite valuable, as you know.”
Troi sighed. So much for grabbing them and beaming out. But that was always a long shot.
“Why,” Worf said, “did you bring us in here?”
Derak laughed. “Oh, we have holoscans! The items are safe and sound.” He tapped on his padd.
“Lot 489,” he said as the holo of the Sacred Silver materialized. A well-worn spoon, with a fine filigreed handle.
“Lot?” Troi looked at him sideways, trying to keep her voice light. “You aren’t selling them as a set?”
Derak’s smile widened. “Well, no, of course not. But I’m sure we can reach an arrangement—”
“The other two items?” Virox interrupted.
An arrangement, Troi thought.
“Of course. Lot 490.” The holo changed and the Enshrined Disk came into view, a flat clay platter, hand painted and fired in a kiln until it shone. “And Lot 491.” The Hallowed Urn. A round, fat vase, unadorned and simple.
“How do we know you actually have these items?” Worf said, his voice booming through the hush of the gallery. “A hologram is no guarantee.”
Derak deactivated the holo and tucked the padd into his coat. “Sir, how could we earn a profit if we didn’t have the items to sell?”
“How much?” Virox demanded. “For all three lots?”
Derak pulled his padd back out and checked it. “We have these lots priced at five thousand bars—”
“Five thousand bars?” Troi asked.
“Apiece,” Derak finished. “And that’s a steal, considering that Lot 489 should really be priced much higher, given its direct lineage back to the Betazoid hero Xiomara—”
“We know who Xiomara is,” Troi snapped. She took a deep breath, calming herself. “What about the arrangement you mentioned? Surely we can get a discount for purchasing the set.”
“Oh, I don’t set the prices,” Derak said. “My employer does.”
“And how did he reach those numbers?” Virox asked.
“He has many interested buyers,” Derak said smoothly. He coughed a little. “Others,” he added cryptically. “You’re lucky you arrived here as soon as you did.” He paused, settl
ing his gaze onto Troi. “So soon after they were delivered by our acquirer.”
“Things that were separated for five hundred years? News travels fast,” Virox said.
“Of course. Now, how will you transfer the bars?” Derak looked up brightly.
“That price,” Worf said, “is absurd. No one buyer will have fifteen thousand bars of gold-pressed latinum at hand.”
Troi stepped forward. “Agreed. Bryt can’t possibly expect anyone to pay that price.”
Derak’s eyes glittered. “Bryt is always open to negotiation. If you have a counteroffer—”
Troi nodded. “Five thousand for all three.”
Derak burst into laughter. “You can’t be serious. Five thousand is far too low.”
“Fine.” Virox stepped forward. “Ten thousand. I think Bryt will find that offer most generous.”
Again, Derak looked at his padd. “Reasonable,” he said. “But what else do you have to offer?” His eyes zeroed in on Worf’s mek’leth.
“Absolutely not,” Worf growled.
“What about the cloak, then?” Derak reached out to touch the thick fabric, but Worf slapped his hand away. “Was it handwoven on Boreth? It certainly has the look.”
Troi felt a burst of hopefulness. The Ferengi thought the cloak was genuine. It wouldn’t pass muster under any kind of scan, but if they could sell it for the treasures—
“Yes,” she said, stepping in front of Worf. “It has been in his family for generations.”
“It’s why we hired him,” Virox said. “We wanted a bodyguard who understands history.”
Derak reached out to the cloak again, but this time Worf brought his mek’leth up. It was enough. Derak’s hand shot back to his side.
“No,” Worf said.
Derak’s eyes widened. He tapped something into his padd, and his eyes widened even farther.
He said excitedly, “Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement after all.”
“I certainly hope so,” Virox purred.
Worf scowled, smoothing his hand over his cloak protectively.
“Are you sure he’ll sell it?” Derak asked.
Worf smiled, showing all his teeth. “I can be convinced, for the right price.”
31
Ensign Josefina Rikkilä raced through the fields, grass slapping at her uniform. Up ahead, the station looked wrong. Lopsided.
“Half the roof has collapsed!” Talma shouted behind her. “How did it happen so fast?”
The tech is sick, she thought. It’s fighting the infection, and failing. She pumped her legs harder, ducking her head lower. It was too early. The autocollapse shouldn’t have started. They’d hardly had a chance to pull out the last of their supplies.
A loud noise cracked across the field, and the right side of the station’s roof tilted down, unleashing a cloud of evaporating biomass.
“Grab as much as you can!” Solanko called out, bolting past Rikkilä. Up ahead, Muñoz burst out of the station, bedding fluttering out behind him. The door was gone, sucked back into the walls to prepare for the self-destruct. “If we can use it, grab it!”
The mossy, wet-dirt scent of the biomass as it decomposed was thick and overwhelming. Solanko slowed and turned around to face Rikkilä and Talma. They had agreed that Data should remain back at the camp; the last thing they wanted was for him to risk failure again.
“Move fast,” Solanko said, his eyes dark and determined. “We’ll be buried if this thing comes down around us.”
The ensign nodded, and the three of them stepped through the gaping doorway. The common room was unrecognizable, the remaining furniture half melted into the floor, the walls wet and glossy and dripping. The scent of dirt was so strong that Rikkilä wondered if this was what it smelled like as you were buried alive.
“Talma, you and I will tackle the labs,” Solanko said. “Rikkilä, you grab medical supplies. And remember”—the walls shuddered—“if it starts coming down, get out immediately.”
He and Talma vanished into the hallway, ducking under a dripping curtain of biomass. Rikkilä picked her way over to the supply closet. The replicator was gone—Malisson must have grabbed it when the collapse started. The alcove where it sat was gleaming and inorganic, startling against the decay. The things that were supposed to be long gone by the time this process was underway.
The supply closet was cramped and shrunken, biomass oozing down the walls in long, thick rivers. It dripped onto the top of the ensign’s hand, surprisingly warm. She choked back a gag.
Something crashed in the back of the station.
“Solanko,” Rikkilä said into her combadge, “are you all right?”
“We’re fine. It was the other lab. Keep working.”
She peered into the closet. The shelves had decomposed into a pile of black, rotting strips, like leaves in late autumn, but silver gleamed amid the detritus. Rikkilä swallowed back another gag and plunged her fingers into the wet biomass, digging around for anything inorganic. She pulled out a tricorder and stuck it in her uniform pocket. There had been a medkit in here, full of supplies. Rikkilä scooped up the biomass and flung it backward, scraping out the remains of the closet shelves. She pulled out a padd, another tricorder—and a hypospray.
Rikkilä cursed softly. The medkit was buried too deep to find.
A groan carried through the common room, and the air filled with damp, swirling dust.
“No!” Rikkilä cried, biomass sticking to her tongue. She scraped more fervently through the pile, looking for the rest of the medical supplies, like vials for the hypospray.
Her fingers squelched through the biomass and then closed around something cold and hard. A vial. She let out a long sigh of relief and yanked it up.
Another shudder rippled up from the floor, violently enough that it tossed Rikkilä backward. She landed in a puddle of biomass and immediately scrambled to her feet, gathering up the supplies she’d salvaged. The air was filled with a swirl of mud and decaying matter.
“Ensign!”
Solanko’s voice cut through the murk. Rikkilä whirled around, clutching the supplies to her chest, as Talma and Solanko appeared through the dust, gleaming lab equipment in their arms.
“Station’s collapsing,” he said. “We have to get out now.”
“Where’s the entrance?” Talma moved forward, his blue skin mottled with the dark biomass. He turned around. “It’s collapsed already. We’re trapped.”
Rikkilä shook her head. “This material is soft,” she said. “We can dig our way out.”
“Agreed.” Solanko plunged forward, Talma and Rikkilä following. At the wall, the ensign dropped the supplies at her feet, took a deep breath, and plunged her hands in. The biomass here was warm and wet, like the inside of a living body. She raked her fingers through it, dropping damp clumps of biomass on the floor. Solanko and Talma were doing the same. They carved through the wall, the ceiling groaning and sinking lower and lower. Rikkilä scraped frantically—how thick was this wall?
And then her hand punched through the other side. Sunlight came streaming in, falling in a sharp line across her knees.
“I’m through!” Rikkilä shouted.
A chunk of the ceiling collapsed behind her, making the wall shudder.
“Go, Ensign,” Solanko said. “We’ll hand the supplies to you.”
Rikkilä dove in, squeezing her eyes shut. The biomass showered around her and for a terrifying moment she was sure it was going to envelop her.
But then she burst into the sun, rolling out into the grass. She immediately spun around and thrust her hands into the wall. Something cool and solid was placed in them. The hypospray and the one vial she had found. She yanked them out.
“Got them!” she yelled.
“Talma’s coming through.”
A spot of blue appeared amid the collapse. Rikkilä grabbed his arm and tugged, pulling him out into the grass, along with a microscanner. Biomass tumbled around them. “The wall’s collapsing!” Sh
e spat out biomass.
Solanko burst through the wall with tremendous strength and a shower of biomass, rolling clear of the station just as the wall tumbled inward, collapsing into a pile.
“Where’s Malisson?” Rikkilä gasped.
“She’s clear,” Solanko said. “Crawled out through an opening in the sleeping quarters, where the window was. I had to make sure you got out.”
Rikkilä nodded. Her entire body was trembling; sweat dripped down her forehead. The air was thick with evaporating biomass. She pushed herself up on one arm just as a great, croaking screech rang out across the field. The roof of the station had bowed inward.
“Solanko!” A familiar voice cut through the groans of the collapsing station. Lieutenant Malisson appeared several paces away, her face covered with biomass, hair matted. “I got the replicator and another scanner,” she said. “I think we’ve got enough scanners that I can cannibalize the batteries.”
“We need to get clear of this station,” Solanko said. “Now.”
The Starfleet officers trudged through the grass, clutching the tech they had rescued. The mulchy scent of biomass was everywhere, like the damp blanket of a forest floor.
A loud thump blew through the fields, and a dark cloud rose into the pale sky. Biomass. The station.
Disintegrating.
32
The life-form is here on this beach, Crusher thought.
Why wasn’t it detected? It should have been when the planet was scanned.
Crusher pushed herself up to sitting. Wind blew off the water. She had confirmed that there was a life-form. Now she just had to learn how to speak with it.
A piece of driftwood had washed ashore; it jutted up into the air, half buried in the sand, and Crusher dug it out with her fingers. She had so many questions. Why did she remember the hallucinations—the communications—when the others hadn’t? What was different?
Crusher stopped digging, sat back on her heels, and wiped her forehead with a sand-streaked hand. How could Starfleet’s sensors miss it? The dozens of probes that had been in orbit of Kota to record and observe. Nothing.
She yanked out the driftwood, sending an arc of sand glittering on the air. The wood was smooth against her palm, like a stone, and she jabbed the end into a clear patch of sand and drew a circle.
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