When we left the camp, those smells dissipated to be replaced by nothing—for just as there is no color, there is no odor to this world, either. Nothing to indicate that anything worthwhile has ever come here. It is as sterile and antiseptic as that idiot Gallamite wishes his hospital was.
But the cave . . .
I hope, my son, that you live a long and fruitful life. And I hope you never have the smell of death invade your nostrils the way it did for me in that cave today.
Commander Gomez’s lamp was insufficient to see all the way into the cave, so I could not begin to describe how many skulls were actually present. But I did know one thing: some of them were very old indeed.
There was one head I saw that was not a mere skull, but in fact a head with a face still attached, belonging to Kelrek. It had been placed unceremoniously in a pile of skulls, no more or less important than any of the other hundreds of trophies this abomination had collected.
Immediately, the talking began. Everyone in the party wanted the creature dead. Some even unholstered their weapons.
“Put those weapons away,” Gomez barked. “I told you—”
I was about to interrupt her. I was going to tell her that she was a fool. I was going to tell her that we needed to destroy this creature now. I was going to tell her that if she did not authorize us to eliminate the monster, I would order the men to do it myself and damn the consequences. I was going to tell her that I didn’t care what it took, I would see this abomination who would display the heads of men in such a manner eliminated. I was going to tell her that anyone who did not see things this way was a fool.
I did not get the chance to say any of those things.
Because that is when the monster attacked.
I cannot say where the creature came from. All I know is that one moment, I was standing before Commander Gomez preparing to speak my mind to her, and the next, I was diving for cover as a crystalline demon leapt into our midst.
After rolling on the ground for several moments, I looked up to see J’Roh flailing blindly at the monster, several other men running away from it—and Commander Gomez holding her ground.
The monster leapt into the air and then headed straight for Commander Gomez.
She still stood her ground, even as I cried out, “Commander, duck!”
Instead, she fired her weapon.
Then she ducked.
Unfortunately, she had only put the weapon on its lowest setting. Equally unfortunately, she did not duck fast enough. The creature sliced at her left arm, tearing her uniform and her skin.
To my amazement, Commander Gomez’s blood was red. For some reason, I assumed that her blood would be a more normal blue color. Perhaps all her people have blood like that. Or perhaps she is special.
The creature came at her again. Though she lay on the ground, though one arm was injured, she managed to change the setting on her rifle and fire it.
Waves of sonic energy battered the monster in midair. It twirled around in midleap and spun like a head-ball being intercepted. It fell to the hard ground just as I had when it first attacked.
Unlike me, it did not get back up.
“Is it dead?” D’Ren asked.
“Looks like it is,” Gomez said. “Dammit!”
J’Roh was chittering madly. “Did I not tell you all? Haven’t I been saying all along that she is the sañuul? This proves it! She has destroyed the monster shii.”
If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would have called J’Roh a fool.
But I had seen it.
Commander Gomez is the sañuul. She has taken the curse of this evil place and removed it.
“Hail to Sañuul!” J’Roh cried, lifting his four front legs into the air.
The Nalori men did likewise with their arms, as did the Osina with their legs. Calwei, the lone Cabbi in the party, waved his flippers.
Regardless of their gestures, they all repeated J’Roh’s cry.
“Hail to Sañuul!”
It took me a moment, but I joined in the cry.
Because, my son, I had seen it. In all the stories, there is one constant: none can kill the monster shii. Yet she did.
Sañuul killed it.
We marched triumphantly back to the camp. By the time we arrived it was completely dark, but a large number of men—including the Bolian zealot, Zilder—were waiting for us at the entryway.
Four of the men carried the body of the monster back. As soon as he saw that, the Bolian cried out, “They have killed it!”
Cheers erupted from the assembled men.
I wanted to display the monster’s corpse on the fence as a testament to victory, and said so as we came in to the adulation of the other workers.
“No,” Sañuul said. “Bring it to the hospital. I want Dr. Dolahn to conduct an autopsy.”
“That fool wouldn’t know which end to cut open!” Calwei said, at which many laughed.
Sañuul even smiled at that. “Maybe. But he’s supposed to be an expert on silicon-based life, and I want to know where this thing came from.”
I walked up to her as the four men continued toward the hospital and the remaining three told the others of our adventure. “We know where it came from, Sañuul.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to start calling me that, too.”
Bowing my head respectfully, I said, “If you do not wish to be called that—”
“I don’t,” she said quickly.
“In any case—Commander —it is a monster shii. It came, presumably, from other shii.”
“Maybe. But Dolahn was right about one thing—it’s a lot bigger than any of the other shii that we saw on the way out there. Or the ones I saw from orbit, for that matter. It might be some kind of mutation or something else. I want to know what.” She took a deep breath. “In the meantime, I think we’ve all earned a night off. First thing in the morning, I want to work out a new schedule with you and J’Roh—with that thing dead, we should be able to get back on track.”
“Of course, Sañ—Commander.”
“Meanwhile, I’m going to follow the corpse to the hospital, get this looked at.” She pointed at her injured arm.
As she walked toward the Gallamite’s chamber of horrors, I called after her. “Commander, if you wish—would you join us?”
She stopped, turned, and frowned at me. “Join you where?”
“Outside my tent. I intend to celebrate our victory with a bottle of Saurian brandy that Entorr thinks he’s been keeping secret. I would be honored if the Sañuul would join us.”
She sighed. “I’m not the Sañuul!” Then she smiled. “But I’d be equally honored to join you. Thank you, Kejahna.”
And she did join us. We drank long into the night. Mostly, Sañuul listened as we regaled each other with stories. Some of them were even true, though they were less so the more we drank. It was very good Saurian brandy, and Entorr only sulked for a little while when I told him to bring it out.
Ah, but your mothers are no doubt distressed at this drinking and carousing so soon after talking of fighting and death.
But a victory should be celebrated. So should a miracle. And Commander Sonya Gomez—the Sañuul—is most definitely a miracle.
Thanks to her, I should be home to see you soon, my son. I look forward to it.
With all the love I have,
Your father,
Kejahna
First officer’s log, Commander Sonya Gomez, planet Sarindar, Stardate 53281.2
Today at noon we will be doing our first test of the annular confinement beam. This is the most important test we’ve done so far, as the ACB is an important component of the SA. The ACB is similar to the kind used in transporters, but much more powerful by several orders of magnitude. It will be used to clear a path of vacuum through the planet’s atmosphere, through which the payloads of chimerium will be accelerated with an eight-nanosecond high-warp pulse that will drive them up to the refinery.
I’ve been a bit concerned about
this particular aspect of the SA, as it’s the most experimental, inasmuch as no one’s ever (to the best of my knowledge) created an ACB on this scale. It’s also a very good thing that I—or at least someone from Starfleet—was assigned to this project before this test was done. The power systems for the ACB were not sufficiently recalibrated for the increased power. The nature of the ACB is such that, as the beam increases in size, you have to increase the power output logarithmically, not exponentially. If they’d built this up to the original specs, as mandated by my predecessor, the best-case scenario would be that the ACB would burn out and shut down. Worst-case: the entire SA would’ve exploded in a fiery mess, people probably would die, and the project would have to start over from scratch.
The original schedule the project had been on when I arrived didn’t have this test being attempted for another two weeks. My own revised schedule had it for two days from now. I would like to formally commend the foreperson Kejahna, my assistant Razka, and the assistant foreperson J’Roh for their exemplary work in putting the project ahead of schedule, despite the numerous impediments that have been placed in our path.
Morale has improved tremendously since the unfortunate incident with the so-called “monster shii.” I am still awaiting an autopsy report from Dr. Dolahn on the nature of the creature. However, my killing the thing has elevated me in the eyes of the Nalori workers. Many have taken to following J’Roh’s example and calling me “Sañuul.” I have tried to discourage this, but to no avail. I’m also not entirely comfortable with the fact that it has taken me killing an animal to gain the respect of the workers.
On the other hand, I can’t argue with the results. We’ve worked the bugs out of the antimatter reactor, the magnetic containment system is up and running, and we’ll be ready to bring the antimatter pods on-line tomorrow. In addition, when I informed Kejahna and the workers assigned to the ACB that we’d have to so radically change the power systems output, his response to my criticism of the methods employed by my predecessor—for the first time since I arrived—was not hostile.
Now it is simply a question of waiting until noon, when we get our pulsar/quasar window.
Personal log, Commander Sonya Gomez, planet Sarindar, Stardate 53281.2
I have learned several valuable lessons these last few days.
The first, and most depressing, is that if you want to gain the respect of a party of Nalori workers, kill a mutated animal (or whatever that overgrown shii was) that attacked your camp. All the sexism, all the anti-Federation sentiment, seems to have disappeared since we came back to the camp with the corpse of the “monster shii.”
The second is that I’m no good at eulogies. We held a funeral service for Kelrek, Saolgud, and Mokae the day after I killed the shii. Nalori death rituals are fairly straightforward: the bodies are burned, and a person of authority—of any authority, it doesn’t have to be someone religious—commends their souls to the afterlife. To be precise, according to the crash course Razka gave me prior to the funeral, their deaths must be announced to the Shigemos so they can welcome their mazza into the Endless Wind. (This was something else missing from the cultural database I read on the da Vinci.)
I tried suggesting the ever-evangelical Zilder as a substitute, but the Nalori would hear none of it. Zilder is an infidel, as far as they’re concerned. (Zilder’s predictable response was, “Give me time to convert you all.”) Of course, I’m as much an infidel, but Razka said that I was the only person on the planet qualified. I’m just grateful that the ritual calls for burning—burial wouldn’t be possible on the glassy surface of Sarindar.
Still, I did my best, which was pretty awful. I see no reason to commit the stumbling, awkward mess to the record—I pointedly turned my tricorder off before the funeral—but suffice it to say, the Shigemos were suitably, if not always intelligibly, informed of the incoming mazza.
The third is that I need to double-check everything. I made what could have been a huge mistake by assuming that the power output on the annular confinement beam was properly adjusted for the size of the ACB, and it wasn’t. Since the diagnostic programs were created by the same people who got the ratios wrong, no error was detected—especially since there’s no point of reference for an ACB this powerful. J’Roh expressed a concern that the nodes might not be able to handle the additional power, but I made sure the auto-shutdown features were up and running in case of such a difficulty.
The fourth is that I’ve gotten remarkably dependent on a tricorder. On a planet so loaded with chimerium, a tricorder is often little more than a glorified paperweight. That’s not entirely fair—medical tricorders still function, certain data can still be examined, and I’m, of course, recording this log on it—but there’s still a lot I can’t do. Every time there’s a problem—and there’s always a problem, no matter how smoothly things might be going at any given point—my instinct is to whip out the tricorder. I did it when the shii attacked poor Kelrek, and I’ve done it any number of times with the equipment. I’m tempted to just leave the thing in my tent, but it doesn’t feel right to walk around the surface of a planet without the familiar weight on my side. Still, I’ve spent more time opening up the guts of machinery than even I’m used to.
The fifth is that the best way to guarantee that Dr. Dolahn will never do something is to tell him that it isn’t top priority. It’s been several days since I told him I needed an autopsy of the monster shii, but he hasn’t gotten to it yet. It was Zilder who explained my tactical error in saying that it wasn’t top priority—apparently, the only way Dolahn ever does anything is if you emphasize that you need it right away. Even then, he may not get to it for days.
Of course, this really isn’t a top priority. I’m curious as to how this creature evolved, especially since all the evidence does seem to point to it being an aberration. We saw plenty of other shii, all of a size commensurate with the anthropological reports. (And don’t think Dolahn hasn’t enjoyed reminding me of that.) I’ve decided to keep the electrified fence up as a precautionary measure, even though none of the other shii we encountered showed any interest in us.
Still, it’s a side concern. The main thing is to get the project finished. I’m happy with our progress, and even happier with the smoother working relations—whatever the reason. But mostly I just want this to be finished so I can get back to the da Vinci. It’s gotten to the point where I’m not even impressed by the crystalline ecology. When I got here, it was a beautiful new world—every time the sun struck a tree or bush, resulting in a spectrum burst, I was captivated. I don’t even notice them anymore.
Looking back over that, I’m getting depressed. Ten years ago, I came out of the Academy hellbent to seek out the unknown, to experience what was out there in deep space. I wanted to see it all, and I didn’t want to miss a thing. (Of course, what I got was the Borg and a rather brutal lesson in being careful what you wish for, but that didn’t change my overall desire.)
Dammit, I’m not going to become one of those moldy officers who treats a new world as just another mission to go on instead of an adventure. I didn’t join Starfleet to slog from one mission to the next.
Next time I see a spectrum burst, I will stop and stare at it. Dammit.
Supplemental
The test of the ACB was an unqualified success. The full results are appended to my main log, but suffice it to say, the power nodes were able to handle the additional input, the beam successfully shunted all the air out of the way and held its integrity for the entire time the window was open, and it shut down smoothly.
One thing I hadn’t been expecting: the ACB’s brightness is such that all the nearby trees give off some pretty amazing spectrum bursts. Even some of the Nalori—who never seemed to be in the least interested in or impressed with the local light-shows—gasped appreciatively at that.
When Razka announced that the window was closing and we shut down the beam, a huge cheer went up. They started crying, “Sañuul” again, and this time I just let them.
It would’ve been churlish to deny them at this point.
The other good news is that we received assorted communiqués. Zilder and I went straight to the tent that held the comm equipment and went through what we had received during the window. Most were of a personal nature, and would be saved to individual padds by Zilder later. Two were for me: one from the da Vinci, and one from the Nalori government. I was eager to hear from Kieran and the rest of the S.C.E., but the other one was unexpected, so I told Zilder to put it on screen.
A particularly long male Nalori face appeared. He looked pretty sallow, and his beard had more gray than violet. I had spoken to this man—the senator in charge of the project—once on the Culloden en route to Sarindar, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name.
Zilder, conveniently, came to my rescue. With as disdainful a tone as I’d ever heard him use, he said, “Senator Moyya. Everybody’s favorite person. I wonder what pearls of wisdom he has to offer.”
This message is to inform you, Commander Gomez, that we are less than impressed with your performance to date. The accelerator is still behind what we consider an acceptable schedule. When we asked Starfleet for assistance, we were assured that we would be getting the best. I have seen nothing in the preliminary reports to indicate that you could be given that description. We removed Nalag because he was behind schedule. While you have improved on his work, you are still performing your task at below par. Either you are incompetent or Starfleet’s standards are lower than I was led to believe. If you have not brought the project to what we deem an acceptable level, we will have to consider having you replaced.
That was it. I stared in open-mouthed shock at the screen for several seconds.
“Ho’nig,” Zilder muttered, shaking his head. “Nalag quit, they didn’t ‘remove’ him. Can you believe that?”
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