by Peter David
Music, slow and sultry and played by someone who knew what he was doing, floated out of the place. The commander was more than a little surprised. Maybe the floor show would be of the same quality, he mused, though he certainly wasn’t counting on it.
He and Tuvok walked inside, allowing the door to slam shut behind them. The dance hall was dark and crowded and filled with alien smells—in many respects, a first cousin to The Den.
On the rounded center stage, however, illuminated by brightly colored lights, a lithe Orion slave girl danced. And contrary to Crusher’s expectations, her performance was a compelling one indeed.
The slave girl’s long, lean muscles rippled smoothly under her green skin, which changed color as she moved in and out of the lights. Her cascade of black hair seemed to coil and uncoil as if it had a life of its own, and the smoke swirling about the place caressed her body as she moved in time to the slow, sensuous pipe music.
Breathtaking, the commander thought. It was almost impossible for him to take his eyes off her. But then, she had been bred from birth to achieve just such an effect.
At one point, the slave girl bent her knees and, arms undulating, bent backward so far that her hair swept the floor. As she writhed, beads of perspiration glistening on her skin, she arched her belly upward and flexed her abdominals with uncanny control.
Abruptly, her bright green eyes fixed on Crusher, sending a jolt of electricity up and down his spine. No, he thought, she can’t be looking at me. Not with all the lights blinding her.
And yet, the slave girl’s gaze seemed to linger. Well, the commander mused, maybe she can see despite all the lights. But why was the Orion looking at Crusher in particular? Or was it just part of the show for her to meet a customer’s gaze now and then?
The latter, no doubt. Still, part of the commander wanted desperately for it to be otherwise.
Suddenly, the slave girl broke eye contact and turned her attention elsewhere—to another patron, he imagined. Crusher felt vacant, oddly disappointed. Then she returned to an upright position again and moved away, disappointing him even more.
Breathtaking, he thought again.
“Commander,” said a familiar voice.
Crusher turned and saw Tuvok standing next to him. Somehow, he had managed to forget that the Vulcan was there.
“Let’s find someone in charge,” Crusher said, shaking off the effects of the slave girl as best he could.
He looked about for someone who might have some authority. As in The Den, no one popped out at him, so he went to the bar. The Vulcan followed dutifully, as always. Seating themselves, they ordered drinks.
As he partook of his beverage, the commander scanned the crowd. His eyes fell on a tall, sallow individual with an elongated head and a narrow thread of dark fur that ran from his crown down the back of his neck. Crusher wasn’t familiar with the species, but the being appeared to move through the throng with confidence, greeting several people and occasionally leaning over to whisper in someone’s ear.
This individual might or might not have been in charge of the place, the human acknowledged. However, it was a good bet that he could steer them where they wanted to go.
Crusher pointed out the alien to Tuvok. “Let’s go,” he said, starting in the requisite direction.
The Vulcan didn’t seem particularly enthused, but he didn’t lodge any complaints either. He simply got off his seat and followed the commander through the crowd.
When Crusher reached the being with the elongated head, he tapped him lightly on the shoulder. The alien turned gracefully, fastening small, emerald-green eyes on him.
“You are not regular patrons here,” he observed in a high-pitched whistle of a voice.
The commander smiled affably. “No,” he conceded, “we’re not. But from what we’ve seen,” and he indicated the Orion on the stage with a tilt of his head, “we’ll be sure to come back some time. At the moment, however, my friend and I are here on business.”
“Oh?” said the alien.
“That’s right,” Crusher told him. “I’m looking for a Benniari named Bidrik Onaggh. I believe this is his—”
The commander felt the threat of moving bodies before he actually turned and saw them emerge from the shadows. There were six or seven of them, he counted at a glance, all big and dangerous-looking. Lousy odds at best, he told himself.
It was obvious now to Crusher that their arrival had been expected. It was also obvious that this reception had nothing to do with sharing mutually beneficial information about steeds and riders. It had to do with the way he had treated Pudris Barrh.
Tuvok had been right, it seemed. The commander had made a mistake. He only hoped it wasn’t too late to make up for it.
Making eye contact with the Vulcan, he shook his phaser pistol out of its hiding place in his voluminous sleeve. It fell with easy convenience into his waiting palm.
Unfortunately, Crusher didn’t get a chance to fire it. The big blue hand of a Pandrilite clamped down suddenly on his wrist, its thick, blue fingers squeezing his bones like a metal vise. Groaning in pain, the human dropped the energy weapon.
But as he did so he also launched a kick at his captor’s knee. It must have struck with considerable force, because the Pandrilite screamed and let go of Crusher’s wrist.
Grunts, curses, and the sound of bone striking bone told him that Tuvok was fighting hand-to-hand beside him. The commander saw at least two bodies hit the floor in quick succession—one a Melacron and the other someone from the same species as Old Scowly. Clearly, Crusher reflected, the Vulcan nerve pinch had been employed with at least some success.
But he didn’t take the time to think anything more. Not when his phaser was lying on the floor, still up for grabs.
Diving for it, the commander reached out and closed his fingers around its barrel. Then he flipped over onto his back and began firing. In this press of bodies, he reasoned, he was bound to hit someone. He did. Twice, in fact.
But before he could hit a third adversary, an exceedingly ugly Banyanan sprang on him with a yell. Crusher tried to spear his adversary with a phaser beam, but the alien was too quick for him.
Knocking the commander’s weapon hand aside, the Banyanan raised a dagger that was as unsightly as he was. For an instant, Crusher could almost feel the pain of the serrated blade penetrating his unprotected throat.
But remembering his training, he shot the heel of his hand into the alien’s angular chin, making the Banyanan’s head rock back. And before he could recover, the human had wrested control of the knife.
The alien grunted in surprise, unsure of what to do next—giving Crusher all the opportunity he needed. Clenching his jaw, he drove the dagger into the side of the Banyanan’s neck.
As the alien clutched at his wound, trying to draw the bloody dagger out, the commander pushed him away and made an attempt to get to his feet. Halfway there, something hit him.
Hard.
Peering up from the bottom of a deep, red well, where the sounds of battle seemed much too far away, Crusher tried to make out his adversary. A being who could have been Old Scowly’s twin hauled him upward, nearly yanking the human’s arm out of its socket in the process.
For a moment, he stood there, his knees too weak to support him for long, and attempted to fire his phaser—only to realize that he had managed to lose it again. Bad, Crusher thought. Very bad.
Then he saw the alien’s mammoth fist come at him in what seemed strangely like slow motion. He watched, fascinated, as it made inexorable progress in the direction of his face.
Very bad, the commander repeated inwardly, bracing himself for the inevitable, devastating impact.
Lir Kirnis was bored.
A master scientist, she was the head of a small band of Melacron who had dared to leave the worlds of their home system to explore the frontiers of science—which was little more than a fancy way of saying they were stuck out here on a distant rock, far away from friends and kin, and had bee
n for a long, long time.
Sitting in her lab above the colony’s enclosed, hundred-meter-long main thoroughfare, Kirnis could see the comings and goings of her colleagues and their families. Somehow, they always seemed happier than she was.
But then, her colleagues had been wiser than she, bringing along their Companions and their children for company. Lir had always been Companioned to her work, not to another living being.
Back on Melacron V, that had been enough to sustain her. But here at this lonely outpost surrounded by a forbidding landscape and volatile weather, there were no fields through which she could stroll while puzzling out a problem. There were no restaurants with good food and wine to satisfy her physical needs, no entertainments to divert her mind.
Nothing but dark, barren mountains and her fellow scientists and the microscopic organisms that continued to elude her scrutiny.
Kirnis heaved a sigh. The creatures had been such a lure at first, such an irresistible temptation. The G’aha of Medicine had approached her with the first findings, taken from an unmanned Melacronai probe. The tiny life forms embedded deep within the rocks boasted a gene sequence that no scientist had ever observed.
Preliminary tests indicated that there might be a way to turn these microscopic entities into instruments of medicine in much the same way that, some three hundred and fifty years earlier, her people had been able to turn common bacteria into cures for a variety of diseases.
The whole prospect was wonderfully exciting. And of all the master scientists at work on Melacron V, Kirnis had been asked to head the expedition.
That was four years ago, she reflected. Four long, frustrating years. Where in the gods’ names had the time gone?
Sighing again, Kirnis called up the latest report and watched it appear on her monitor screen. The log indicated that sample 857230-KRA, obtained from the heart of the volcanic range located at forty-two point four degrees latitude and thirty-seven point zero degrees longitude, had been just as disappointing as all the other samples taken before it.
It simply refused to survive in laboratory conditions. How could one study a microscopic organism if it refused to live any longer than a day—and for no reason anyone could discern?
Four years here, she thought, and all their efforts had been in vain. It wasn’t a record Kirnis was proud of, especially in light of the high expectations that had accompanied her voyage here.
She glanced over at her bright green-and-scarlet scarf, folded reverently, awaiting her. At least Inseeing would begin at sunset tomorrow; she could console herself with that. It was her favorite holiday.
Normally, a Melacron purchased a new scarf every year and wore it only for the period of Inseeing. Then it was burned in accordance with the ancient sacraments. She and her team, however, had already been stuck at their outpost two years longer than they had planned. As a result, they had been unable to purchase new scarves.
Tradition held that it was bad luck to preserve the scarves and not burn them. But Kirnis had always held a sneaking suspicion that “tradition” had been started by scarf-makers. Besides, she couldn’t bear the prospect of having no scarf at—
Behind her, the colony’s advance warning monitor began to beep. Apparently, she told herself, the sensor mechanisms orbiting the outpost had detected the approach of something.
Adrenaline flooded Kirnis. She hadn’t expected a Melacronai vessel to show up for several months yet. Whirling, she checked the monitor. Then her eyes went wide as she read the information couched there—the impossible, heartstopping and yet undeniable information.
Status: vessel approaching. Bearing: two six four mark two. Vessel type: Cordracite warship third class, weapons systems armed.
“No,” she breathed. Of course there had been a history of bad blood between the Melacron and the Cordracites, but that was no reason for an armed warship to bear down on an isolated outpost.
“There’s nothing here,” she complained, though none of her colleagues was in the room to hear her.
Gritting her teeth against panic, Kirnis flipped a switch on her communications console. Abruptly, the image of the approaching vessel appeared on her screen. It was indeed a Cordracite warship, bristling with weapons ports and full of terrible purpose.
She would contact them, she decided. She would convince them that they were making a mistake.
“Master Scientist Lir Kirnis to Cordracite vessel,” she said in a voice that shook. “This is a Melacronai research outpost populated only with scientists and their families. Repeat, this outpost is populated only with scientists and their families. The results of our research are available to all. There is no need for an attack.” She swallowed in a painfully dry throat. “Please respond and we will discuss the situation further.”
Then Kirnis punched a brightly lit button on the console and waited for the Cordracites’ answer. To her horror, none came.
Trembling, her two hearts thumping, she repeated the message, adding, “We have no weapons here, no tactical systems. Ours is a purely scientific venture. Please respond, Cordracite vessel. Your orders to attack this facility must be in error.”
There was silence across the vastness of cold space. Nor did the ship turn away. It continued to bear down on them.
Kirnis glanced at the main thoroughfare, where her colleagues and their families continued to make their way from place to place. Clearly, they were oblivious of the danger facing them.
She wondered if she should tell them what was about to happen. She wondered if she would want to know, if their positions were reversed—and decided not to say anything.
If these were their last moments, as seemed increasingly likely, why tear them apart with fear? Why not let the Melacron there go on as though nothing were wrong, enjoying each other to their last breath?
Kirnis turned to the monitor again. Numbly, disbelievingly, she watched the vessel’s weapons stations flash a bright green—and being a scientist, knew what that meant.
“This can’t be happening!” she shrieked into the console’s communications grid. “Hold your fire! Cordracite vessel, you’ve made a mistake! There are no weapons here, nothing of value.” She felt her stomach muscles clench. “There are children…children, damn it! Come down and see for your—”
Then it was too late to protest, too late for anything, because the sky was ablaze with a hideous emerald fire. The last thought that went through Kirnis’s mind was, absurdly, that not burning her Inseeing scarf for two years in a row had brought her very bad luck indeed.
Chapter Thirteen
“THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!” Lir Kirnis screamed. “Hold your fire! Cordracite vessel, you’ve made a mistake! There are no weapons here, nothing of value.” She licked her lips. “There are children…children, damn it! Come down and see for your—”
Jean-Luc Picard watched in horrified silence—along with the rest of the Kellasian Congress—as Melacronai Master Scientist Lir Kirnis frantically tried to dissuade the attack that ultimately destroyed her.
Kirnis stared up at something, her eyes wide, her face bathed in a sickly green light. Her mouth moved, but it didn’t produce any words. Then the image on his screen went blank.
The captain’s teeth ground together. After all, he had seen the terror in Kirnis’s expression. He had seen the damning sensor data downloaded from the colony computers, which somehow survived the attack. And he had seen the list of those who had perished.
As Kirnis had indicated, there had indeed been children at the outpost—a great many of them, it seemed. And they had all fallen victim to the Cordracite war vessel.
“There can be no error!” shrilled the Melacronai G’aha of Finance, his eyes wide with fury. “On the eve of our most sacred and holy time, the Cordracite monsters appear like demons out of legend to massacre the young, the helpless and the innocent!”
“No!” countered Sammis Tarv, on his feet now, his antennae bent forward with indignation. “This is not just an error—it is a cold, calcula
ted attempt by the Melacronai government to blame the Cordracites for their tragedy! These—these creatures murdered their own scientists and made it look as if we did it!”
“We would kill our own?” The G’aha was stunned by the accusation. “And we would do this on the eve of Inseeing? Trust a Cordracite to think of something so irrational…so abominable!”
“Trust a Melacron to do something so abominable!” came a rasping reply from one of the Cordracites.
And then it happened. The assemblage’s carefully built foundation of diplomacy and reason shattered like fine crystal under the impact of a level-ten phaser barrage. The Cordracite Elected One charged the Melacronai G’aha, his jaw pincers extending from his mouth as he hissed the ancient blood cry of his people. Just as eager for a confrontation, the G’aha bellowed and met the Elected One halfway.
Picard couldn’t allow it. Leaping down from the podium with Ben Zoma on his heels, he made a beeline for the combatants.
As it turned out, Gerrid Thul reached them first. He threw his body between them and struggled to keep the delegates from killing each other—no easy task. Fortunately, others arrived to help, the captain and his first officer among them.
The Cordracite was the more formidable of the delegates. His pincers and his clawlike fingers tore clothing and flesh alike.
“Peace! Peace in these halls, I beg you!”
Cabrid Culunnh’s voice was shrill with grief—over the murders of innocents, over the violence displayed in a hall meant to nurture peace, over the looming specter of war and even more death. He hastened down from the stage, his small, round face expressing his apprehension as eloquently as any words he might utter.
“The First Minister is right!” said Picard, raising his voice to be heard over the uproar. “These halls are meant for dialogue, not defamation…debate, not indictment!”