The tree-trunk alien guided him past a platform where several shape-changing aliens morphed between forms to the tempo of the music: the local equivalent of rock-paper-scissors. Their trek through the party ended at an anteroom hidden behind a music-generating machine. Red smoke pouring out of the entranceway made it difficult to see within, but Tom trusted that the tree-trunk alien knew what he was doing. Crouching down to fit without scraping his head on the ceiling, he squeezed in after the alien. Smoke-induced coughing fits and eyes itching and watering with grit assaulted him instantly. He doubled over wheezing, swiping at his eyes to remove the offending particles; he squeezed his eyelids together, hoping to induce enough optical lubrication to avoid near-blindness. Once his discomfort was alleviated, he eased upward, righting himself, and saw Harry, arms and legs bound by thick manacles, his mouth scabbed over with foamy crust. Tom cringed at the grotesqueness of Harry’s appearance, but resisted the impulse to look away. Taking a few steps toward Harry, Tom focused on learning what little he could about what had befallen his friend from Harry’s abnormally widened eyes and rapid blinks. His friend shook his head violently and jerked his head exaggeratedly to his left. Catching the clue, Tom stopped and glanced in the direction Harry indicated. Through the dissipating smoke, Tom saw an enormous walking stick seated beside Harry. The pincers at the end of one of the alien’s eight segmented limbs hovered around Harry’s neck.
The creature drilled its multifaceted prismatic sense organs on Tom, the exterior of each of the three melon-shaped globes reflecting endless distorted images. One globe, moving independently of the others wriggled up and away from the brown wavy-plated exoskeleton torso until it hovered in the air like a periscope.
Tom sat stone still while he was examined. Whether the tree-trunk alien had brought him here to be dinner or whether there was a chance of advancing his search for Kol was unclear. The sweat drizzling down Harry’s blanched cheeks didn’t encourage him. At last, the prismatic globe returned to its place beside the others. The exoskeleton vibrated, quivering with hummingbird speed.
The universal translators rendered the atonal vibrations as language, but Tom heard only disconnected syllables. He glanced at the tree-trunk alien for clarification.
“Pem wants to know your interest in Kol.”
Tom breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m not working for one of Kol’s creditors, if that’s what you’re asking. My interest is personal. There’s a problem that”—he tried to think of the right word to describe Q—“one of my associates is having that only Kol can solve.”
The exoskeleton vibrations resumed in rapidly shifting tones and tempos.
“The other one. The soft body like you,” the tree-trunk alien said. “He had nothing to offer. For an offer, Pem will help.”
This might be fun. Taking a deep breath, Tom said, “I’ll win a race for Pem. In exchange, he tells me where I can find Kol.” He pointedly ignored Harry’s horrified bugeyed expression. “And he releases my friend unharmed as soon as I enter the capsule.”
Another series of vibrations sounding suspiciously like laughter raised the hair on Tom’s neck. He didn’t need the tree-trunk alien to translate to know he had a deal.
Surviving long enough to collect the payment was another matter.
Brushing gravel from his arms, the Doctor sat up, stretched his arms and shoulders, and looked around what appeared to be a canvas tent. Definitely a flimsy one: the dingy, coarse brown walls flapped with every passing gust of wind. He could barely discern his surroundings in the shrouding darkness. Beside him on the ground, he discovered a Saracen-style lamp, recalling a prop from the Arabian Nights. He touched the polished brass exterior: it was still warm. The lamp must have recently been extinguished. He fumbled around until he found an ignition switch. Moments later, warm light flooded the room.
He observed a plain, utilitarian desk; several scratched trunks closed with large copper fasteners, each large enough to hold a person, if necessary; a series of unfamiliar weapons—perhaps lances or swords. How had he come to be in this place?
A faraway horn sang in rapid-fire staccato.
The sharp tingling in his body prompted remembrance. Ocampa. The Nacene.
Had he been dreaming?
A slit in the wall opened and two men and a woman, all wearing the lily crest, stepped inside, General Lia’s slight form sandwiched between them. The general is back from the field hospital. Perhaps now I can focus on my mission from Vivia. I have to get access to those Nacene…. Anew, he recalled the strange encounter with the hazel-eyed soldier. Perhaps he had reached the wrong conclusion. It had all happened so quickly…. For the moment, he chose to put it aside. He scrambled to his feet, confusion forgotten.
With a toss of red-gold hair, Lia snapped an order dismissing her entourage. In a moment they were alone in the tent. She plopped down onto the edge of the cot, resting her hands in her lap. “I never thought I’d get a private moment with you.” Lia grinned at him.
The Doctor couldn’t help reciprocating her smile, but Lia’s smile belied a feverish flush in her pale face—a watery heat in her eyes, which were ringed with bruise-colored half-circles. “You are not well,” he said.
“Not you too, Ced, I—” She wavered, throwing a hand behind her to prevent her from falling backward. “Ever since the baron’s fortress…I haven’t felt entirely like myself.”
“When was the last time you had something to eat or drink?” the Doctor asked.
“I might have had something in the med tent—”
“Might?”
Lia responded with a noncommittal shrug.
The Doctor stepped over to the tent flap, pushed it aside, called to the soldier on duty outside, and ordered him to have a meal brought to the general immediately. He turned back to the young general, who watched him with affectionate bemusement.
“If you had died back at the fortress—because of me—” Her voice trailed off. “But you didn’t. And now you’re here.”
A twinge of guilt tweaked the Doctor: Lia’s loyal confidant had lost his life in the fortress. The Doctor was a stranger masquerading as her friend, and that felt suspiciously like a betrayal of her trust. He made a silent vow that he would protect her, for Ced’s sake. As part of keeping that promise, he determined that her sorry physical state needed to be dealt with posthaste.
With a thousand years of medical advances at his fingertips, the Doctor knew he could outperform anyone on this world in this era. He informed Lia that as her adjunct, he needed to assess her battle fitness, hoping she would accept that reasoning without question. The Doctor still had little clue of what Ced’s day-to-day duties were.
After halfhearted protestations, she submitted to his exam.
The Doctor touched the primary arterial branch in the general’s neck to evaluate cardiac function and performed a quick visual triage to assess for signs of internal bleeding or obvious maladies. Other than low blood sugar and dehydration, she appeared fit; the Doctor said so. Medical intuition told him there was more to Lia’s poor health, but he lacked evidence to confront her.
“I told you, Ced, you old worrier you.” Lia folded her arms across her chest and tucked her hands into her armpits. “A good meal and I’ll be as strong as a lumwa’s back.”
Her gesture struck the Doctor as self-conscious—too deliberate. She was hiding something. “Show me your hands.”
Averting her eyes, Lia made no move to comply with his request. “Mestof’s wizards are in custody. It really was a spectacular maneuver how Balim—”
A soldier pushed back the tent flap and held out a wineskin and a crude pottery bowl filled with stewed vegetables and meat. Lia accepted the food and then dismissed the soldier.
Not even the mention of the “wizards” would deter the Doctor, possessed, in this moment, with memories of his lost friend. Softly, he said, “My liege.”
She sighed, placed her meal atop a wooden chest, and held out her hands for him to examine. The Doctor flipped th
em over to check her palms. A sticky yellow substance oozed from her pores—the ipasaphor. Lia had entered the once-in-an-Ocampan’s-life fertility period. Having gone through this early in Kes’s years on Voyager, he knew what to expect. He looked up at her and asked in his clinician’s voice, “Has the mitral sac formed on your back?”
Lia bit her lip and nodded.
“Your body is under extreme strain right now, what with the elogium as well as what you did on the battlefield. You’ve been taxed to your limits. You need time to regain your strength.” The Doctor eased her back onto the stretcher and pulled a blanket up around her neck. “There. Rest. Recover. This is an important event in your life.”
“Compared to what? Saving Ocampa?!” Lia exhaled loudly and kicked off the blanket. “I have no time to be an invalid.”
“Think of your health!”
“Scouts have sighted a platoon of Mestof’s soldiers heading in this direction,” Lia protested. “I must recover if we are to prevent them from retaking their wizards. You know I don’t have parents to perform the rolisisin, never mind the luxury of six days to form a mating bond.”
“How far away is the enemy?” the Doctor asked.
“They are expected before dusk.”
The Doctor frowned. Even if he had electrolytic fluids and hypos and optimal conditions to help restore Lia to full strength, he would still want to keep her under observation for a full day and night before she could be released for duty. “The troops should be prepared to fight without you.”
Eyes flashing, she snapped, “They will not fight alone.”
Even in her anger, how like Kes she looked! The resemblance was extraordinary. The Doctor wondered if perhaps there was some ancestral tie between Lia and Kes. “Mestof’s troops, for the time being, are scattered. Attend to yourself! You know as well as I that the elogium will happen only once for you.”
“Balim’s strategy worked then. He said it would. Where is he—” Lia began sitting up, then collapsed back onto the stretcher. She scrunched her eyes together tightly, emitting a hiss through clenched teeth. “I—hurt.”
“I know,” the Doctor said, wishing for all the latinum and precious treasures in the universes that he had the resources of Voyager’s sickbay at hand. “I’ll look for something to relieve your discomfort, but you have a more pressing concern: what to do about the elogium.”
The general became still. She signed deeply. “There have been signs but circumstances have been so dire…I couldn’t be distracted. Balim has urged me to take better care of myself, but I haven’t listened to him either. You shouldn’t take it personally.”
“You will need to be distracted now because the window of conception is limited. Do you have someone…?” His voice trailed off. When his Kes had gone through this, she had been in a relationship with Neelix. Lia had repeatedly mentioned Balim. Then the Doctor remembered the hazel-eyed soldier. The one who might be…Could they be one and the same, Balim and the soldier? The familiarity between Lia and the soldier had the unmistakable air of romantic entanglement about it. And Lia clearly trusted this Balim, whoever he was. The Doctor’s encounter with the handsome soldier had a far less pleasant outcome. As much as he dreaded her answer, he had to know. His heart squeezed painfully in his chest: “Balim? The one with the hazel eyes I met earlier?”
A slight smile curled her lips; a flush pinked her pale cheeks.
The Doctor repressed the inclination to comment. It couldn’t be possible—this lovely creature, involved with that. She couldn’t know his true identity and still share such—he scowled—intimacies with him.
“I know he is yet a stranger to you, Ced,” she began, clearly trying to reassure him. “But he is…remarkable. Though we haven’t yet received the sanction of the priests for our union.”
Lia’s exceptional powers made more sense if she had a Nacene in her life. By comparison, Kes didn’t show such gifts until she had begun transforming. Tanis and his fellow Ocampa demonstrated powerful abilities because of Suspiria’s interference. Having a Nacene by your side—in your bed—had its benefits, the Doctor supposed. He glanced at the young general who reminded him so much of Kes. She had a soft light in her eyes. No question, she loved this Balim, whatever he was. How could she be so foolish! This Balim creature was using her!
Another horrible thought occurred: Balim might be the Light, the Nacene the Doctor had promised to stop at all costs for the purpose of saving Voyager. He couldn’t betray Lia’s love without betraying Lia, and yet circumstances might require he make a difficult choice. The Doctor had to know how serious their relationship was. “Are you prepared to have a child with Balim?”
“I love him—”
The Doctor felt ill.
“But I will not conceive a child with him or any other.”
“What?” the Doctor said, eyes widening. Yet relief coexisted with sadness for Lia’s sake. Knowing what having a child had meant to Kes, what it meant to the Ocampa of the modern day, he had an inkling of what Lia intended to sacrifice.
“We are at war. I live on the battlefield and will not bring a child into this life. Mestof must be defeated and Ocampa restored.” She rolled onto her side and stared at him, unflinching. “There is no place for a child.”
“Regardless of what you decide, you are in no condition to face Mestof. Rest now or you will be of no use to anyone.” The Doctor gently pushed her shoulders back and again drew the blanket up to her chin.
“You are too kind to me, Ced.”
“Be kind to me and take care of yourself.” Tucking a tangle of dull red-blond braids behind her ears, he placed a paternal kiss on her forehead and rubbed a dirty smudge off her translucent cheek with his thumb. The hollows beneath her eyes bespoke of bone-aching fatigue. Her collarbone was jutting out beneath her thin, coarsely woven tunic. Her chest shuddered with the deep, asthmatic cough of one constantly subjected to battlefield pollutants. The Doctor looked on helplessly, longing for the medicines to ease her maladies.
Lia studied him intently. “I used to be able to touch your thoughts easily, Ced. Something has changed.”
I am no longer the person you knew, the Doctor thought. “The battle exhausted you. Do not exert yourself.”
“Yes…that must be it.” Lia yawned, closed her eyes, and drifted into a fitful rest.
He watched her as she slept, wondering if there was a way for this situation to resolve that wouldn’t require her to lose the love of her life—or him to be trapped on Ocampa forever. Moments later, the Doctor went in search of the hazel-eyed soldier, the Nacene Lia called Balim.
As a Vulcan, Tuvok had, through a lifetime of self-discipline and understanding, trained his mind to reject thoughts or impulses that might compel him to impose his perspectives on those around him. Their ability, or inability, to live an enlightened existence of self-mastery was not for him to judge. If his input was desired, he would be asked to share it. His rigid adherence to a nonjudgmental worldview was precisely what had earned him his role as Kathryn Janeway’s mentor and confidant for many years. Otherwise, her emotionally impulsive tendencies would have driven him to violence long ago. In his present circumstance on the Monorhan vessel, however, he made an exception to his hard-and-fast rule.
He found it unconscionable that sentient beings could survive under these circumstances. As he moved through the compartments, accompanied by Ensign Luiz, he was overwhelmed by the suffering these individuals lived with. The majority of what had formally been living spaces had become mortuaries. Twelve thousand Monorhans, a thousand from each tribe, had left the planet on these ships. Currently, less than half survived. Tuvok doubted whether half of those had the capacity to recover from their ailments. To better their odds, the surviving passengers had abandoned the most damaged parts of the vessel and had moved into the most livable compartments. Overcrowding and resource scarcity had put the qualifier “livable” into question. From what he could tell, however, the dead outnumbered the living on this ship.
At a minimum, hundreds of Monorhans pressed into each compartment he had visited. He couldn’t accurately ascertain the numbers because of their emaciated condition: there might actually be far more than what he guessed. Most of the Monorhans were too weak to even acknowledge his presence. He had seen the hands reaching to touch his environmental suit in an effort to secure his attention, but none had the strength to do more than that. Vacant stares followed him wherever he walked. They no longer had the strength to express their misery through tears or wailing. The quiet, save for the rustle of bodies shifting position, permeated every square meter he covered.
Tuvok was uncertain whether Voyager could be of much use here. The stench of disease, the decaying flesh and lack of sanitation alone was unacceptable. Compounding the problem was the abundant radiation, starvation, and the limited quantity of potable water. Ensign Luiz did the best she could to assess which Monorhans could benefit most from medical treatment. The larger question was would they benefit at all? A few moments ago, Tuvok had found Luiz kneeling on the floor, hands pressed against her helmet, undoubtedly overwhelmed by the challenge.
“We’ve barely started and I’m almost out of hypos,” she’d said.
Next to Harry, she’d been one of Voyager’s most inexperienced crew members when the ship had left Deep Space 9. Her growth curve had been steep. “Do what you can. Sometimes comfort in the face of death is the kindest gift one may offer.”
Shortly after, she’d resumed her work, but the problem remained of how useful the away mission would be without more supplies.
Using his mind, he reached out to the Monorhans and sought to learn answers to his questions, the most pressing of which being how can we help you? What he discovered might have collapsed an emotional individual like Captain Janeway; for him, it was profoundly disturbing, though understandable.
All of these passengers had collectively lost their will to live. They had come to accept that death was a kinder fate than continuing to live under such despicable circumstances. He didn’t want to violate the privacy of the passengers, but he did discover the barest outlines of their personal stories. How young ones died covered by ulcerated lesions, burning to death from the inside out owing to radiation poisoning, the suicides. Tuvok maintained his impassive demeanor when a Monorhan mind told him the story of the parent who killed her unborn child so as not to expose it to this misery. He saw before his eyes the hallucinations that led passengers to claw the hull plating until their raw fingers bled and broke. The psionic intensity reminded him of the time he spent with Lon Suder. Permitting such a breakdown to occur at this time would not be advisable, given the circumstances.
String Theory, Book 3: Evolution Page 20