by Peter David
“That is absurd . . .”
“You were at the Quiet Place, Si Cwan. You heard the silent screams, you saw with your own eyes the anger that the departed can emit. Who are you to tell me that their cries from beyond are inaudible to me just because you cannot hear. Cannot, or will not.”
“Kalinda,” he said with a carefully even voice, “you are beginning to concern me.”
“I am concerned as well, Si Cwan. Concerned that whoever did this terrible thing may get away with it, unless I do something about it. But before I do, I must ask you to leave. You and Ookla.” She thought that her voice was starting to crack, betraying the concern that she was feeling and trying desperately to rein in. “I think it better if I am in this room alone.”
“What are you planning to do?” he demanded.
“Whatever I can. That is all any of us can do.” She pointed the way out. “Please, go now.”
“Kalinda, I am not—”
“Go.” There was a force and anger to her that was of such controlled ferocity that Si Cwan was taken aback. At first it seemed as if he was not only going to ignore her request, but pick her up bodily, sling her over his shoulder, and cart her out of there himself. But then he bowed slightly, turned, and headed out. Ookla lingered a moment, not saying anything, but simply clicking his mandibles, and then he shuffled off as well.
Kalinda had had a strong feeling of what she was going to do—what she had to do—since she had first resolved to come. To that end, she had done everything she could to stay awake as much as possible on the journey to Pulva. While Si Cwan had dozed next to her (after scaring the hell out of the child behind him) Kalinda had struggled, and succeeded, in staying awake and wide-eyed. She was hoping that it was going to pay off now.
She was not in the Quiet Place itself, of course. The Quiet Place was a place of power, her place of power. The connections between those who had gone ahead and those who remained behind was much tighter, the walls of separation far more thin. But the separations here were also quite feeble, primarily because of the violence that had been committed here, and the strength of personality of the departed.
Kalinda went straight to the place in the room where her mind’s eye had told her that Jereme had bled the last of his life’s blood. There was no visual sign of it, but her instincts, her sight, told her all she needed to know. Slowly Kalinda sank to her knees, the first telltale signs of exhaustion beginning to appear. She yawned widely several times in a futile effort to remain awake. Staying awake, however, was not her plan, or at least not fully wide-awake.
She ran her palms across the floor. Some parts of it felt warmer to her than others. She thought it might be her imagination, but suspected that it was not. “Yes,” she murmured, and again, “Yes.” She thought she heard something at that point, but if it was indeed a voice it was not one that she could yet fully comprehend.
She lay back upon the floor. Visualization was especially helpful at these kinds of moments. She closed her eyes and called to her mind, as best as she could remember, the images that had torn across her slumber. It was not an easy thing for her to do; in fact, it was exceedingly painful. But she did it nonetheless, assembling it piece by piece. It was as if she were producing a painting, bit by bit. She sketched in the general shape of the face as she had seen it, and then came the details, the eyes, filled with betrayal, the mouth which was not twisted in fear, but rather was locked in a sneer of near contempt. And the blood, everywhere the blood, tinting the entire image red.
All of this she crafted in her mind, as if constructing a still-life.
And then the blood began to flow.
She had been pulled into a sort of waking dream before she was even aware of it.
The emanations that had been left behind in the room by the violent death which had occurred there had been completely absorbed into her. They had permeated her being, had suffused her very essence. There was no way for her to turn away from them.
But she realized that she was not seeing the events in the room as they necessarily were, but rather the way that Jereme had perceived them himself.
Jereme was not yet dead. He was getting to his feet, facing someone whom Kalinda could not see. She strained to look around, to see the source of the attack, but she was not in control of the vision. She did not yet have enough craft, enough honing of her abilities, to take charge of the situation in that manner. Instead she felt disoriented, ill at ease. If she’d been able to, she would have clawed her way out of there, but she was in too deep. There were voices in her head, low and angry, shouting, except that Jereme was not shouting. He was speaking calmly, albeit firmly. And it was the other . . . the other . . .
The other . . .
She saw him.
She had conjured up her own thoughts as to what the murderer would look like. But she had never envisioned him as being so . . . so handsome.
That, however, was what he was. If evil had a face, this was most certainly not it. He had a glorious smile, and even though it was being worn because he was about to inflict terminal mayhem upon somebody, it was a resplendent smile just the same. He was young, somewhere in his mid-twenties at most. His hair was blond and combed tightly back, a widow’s peak coming to a perfect point. Indeed, everything about him was perfect. Kalinda, much to her revulsion, actually felt drawn to him. It was something about his eyes, a virtual magnet of attraction that she felt all but helpless before.
And his hands . . .
Those were the next things she noticed, because they were moving with incredible speed, so fast that she could not even track them. Jereme, for all his arts of defense, was not able to defend himself in the slightest. Oh, he tried. The blond man advanced on him, and the first ten times that he struck at Jereme, Jereme was not there. But the eleventh time, he connected, and suddenly there was a huge gash across Jereme’s chest. Then came another six attempts, all futile, but the seventh struck home, and a crisscross of deep gashes was on Jereme’s torso. He staggered, grim but smiling, and he laughed and he was unafraid. Kalinda couldn’t tell whether he had truly been overcome, or whether he was bored with life and simply was taking the opportunity to end it, or perhaps he was truly so chagrined that he was being defeated by this young sadist that he was burying his anger deep, deep down, displaying an insouciant attitude to his murderer while knowing that his fury would rise from beyond the end of his life to be used against him who had ended it.
There was a pull at Jereme’s chest, and a thrust, and then came the fountain of blood. And he heard Jereme shout a name, and she wasn’t sure, but it sounded something like “Olivan.” She couldn’t be sure. The name was completely strange to her.
And then Olivan—if that was who it had been—was gone. Kalinda was in his place, and the blood was all over her, splattered in her face, soaking her clothes. She let out a silent shriek, trying to tear away the blood-drenched clothes, but it did no good, for the blood had soaked right through and was all over her body.
She began to sob uncontrollably, at once mortified by her weakness and simultaneously not caring whether she seemed weak or not. The grim determination that she had displayed earlier when it came to doing her job was gone. Instead all she wanted to do was get out of there, before she herself was dragged down somehow into the pits of despair where the shade of Jereme now resided, waiting for someone to avenge him.
“Si Cwan!” she screamed, clutching at air, seeking reprieve, finding nothing except terror. Suddenly she was sinking. The blood had so completely softened the ground that she was literally sinking right into it, even though she was standing on a previously solid floor. She had forgotten that she was in a vision. It was all too real, and now she was sunk to her knees. The floor was still pulling her in, and she unwisely but instinctively shoved her hands down to try and find something solid to push against. This was an extremely bad move, for her hands sank in as well, and now there was nothing to stop her as the floor sucked her down, the blood bubbling up all around her, and she
cried out as the blood oozed around her, up her nostrils, down her mouth, and she was choking on it, unable to breathe . . .
“Kalinda!”
She snapped back to consciousness and coughed up a huge clot of mucus.
It spattered all over Si Cwan’s boot, and he looked down at it with distaste. But he only let it distract him momentarily as he focused back on his sister. “Kalinda . . . do you know where you are?” He was holding her firmly by the shoulders, trying to make eye contact. Her head was flopping about so much that it seemed affixed to her shoulders by means of a string. “Kalinda, do you know where you are?”
“Yes . . .” she managed to say. “I am . . . I am . . .”
“Where are you?”
“Here.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Yes. That’s right. You’re here. Do you know where here is?”
“Yes . . . with you . . .”
“That’s right . . .”
“And . . .” Words, names, images, were still tumbling through her brain, fighting for dominance. “And . . . with Jereme . . . and Olivan . . .”
The mention of the last name immediately sparked a reaction from Si Cwan. He turned and looked at Ookla, whose mandibles clicked even more animatedly than they had before. “Was Olivan here?” demanded Si Cwan.
“No. Absolutely not. It never even occurred to us that . . . I mean, it was so long . . .”
“Not long enough, apparently,” Si Cwan said tightly. “It would seem that Olivan had a long memory.”
“Happened so quickly,” Kalinda was saying. “So fast . . . how long was I out . . . two minutes? Three?”
“Five hours.”
“Oh.” She saw that it was true; the shadows were becoming longer in the room. “Not especially time-efficient method. Sorry.”
“No apologies necessary. It appears you got results. Let’s get something to drink into you. You’re shivering.”
“Did my saying . . . what was it . . . Olivan . . . mean anything?”
“Yes, it does,” Si Cwan said grimly. “It means that the bastard who owns that name is not going to be needing it much longer.”
SOLETA
THE ROMULAN GUARDSMAN called Krakis was the only one who was wearing the helmet attachment to the armor, making him damned near impervious. He pulled a long, curved, and vicious-looking blade from its scabbard on his belt and took a step toward Rajari. The blade, however, was of less concern to Soleta than the disruptor that hung on the other side of his hip. Of the Romulans there, he appeared to be the only one wearing any sort of heavier armament than a blade. She wasn’t entirely surprised; the local authorities took a dim view of energy weapons. They had given her some problems when she’d first arrived with her phaser, and only her Starfleet status had gotten them to back off. So they were very likely being discreet with the amount of weaponry they were carrying on them. She didn’t recognize him from the alley; perhaps this Krakis had remained behind during the initial raid, and was considered to be some sort of enforcer, a second-in-command to Adis. All well and good, but it meant that disabling him in any sort of simple way was not going to be . . . well . . . simple.
Having just been ordered by his liege lord to dispose of Rajari, Krakis seemed all too happy to accommodate. Before he took a second step toward Rajari, however, he was frozen in his place by the steely voice of Soleta as she said, “Stop.”
Slowly all eyes turned toward Soleta. Adis looked the most annoyed. “Who is this?”
“She was in the alley,” said one of the other guardsmen. “She was with Rajari.”
“I see. Are you his whore?” inquired Adis. “Perhaps you could service me.”
“If you consider having your head blown off as being serviced, I shall be most happy to oblige you. You,” and she gestured with the phaser to Krakis. “Use that blade to cut him loose. If you do not do so immediately, or if you endeavor to injure him or me,” and she took a deep breath, “I shall kill you.”
Krakis studied her very carefully, very thoroughly. Then his face twisted into a sneer. “Pacifist fool, just as all your misbegotten and genetically inferior race. You’re bluffing,” he said, and made a quick move toward his disruptor.
Soleta blew a precisely placed hole through his chest. Krakis was dead before he hit the ground. From the reactions of the other Romulans, it was clear that the seriousness of the threat that she presented had suddenly gone up several notches.
“We may be pacifists . . . but our reputation for our inability to bluff has apparently not preceded us,” Soleta informed them. Her face was inscrutable. Never had her training been of greater use to her. She gestured to another Romulan and said, “You. Pick up the knife. Sever the bonds.”
“Or you’ll kill him, too,” inquired Adis. “And me as well?”
“If necessary.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “You wear the shell of the Vulcan sheep . . . but there is more the wolf in you than appears at first glance. I wonder as to the purity of your blood, woman, for I see something of us in you. Perhaps more than you would like to admit there being. Who are you?”
Soleta was less than ecstatic about the direction of this conversation, and was rather anxious to terminate it. “The person holding the phaser. That is the only aspect of my identity that need concern you at the moment. I am waiting for you,” she said to the Romulan guardsman, “for you to obey my orders.”
“No,” said the guardsman defiantly, looking to Adis for approval. Adis nodded, indicating that he’d given the right answer.
An instant later he was writhing on the ground, a chunk of his leg charred beneath his melted armor.
“I appear to be doing all the work here,” Soleta said to Adis. “I know. You select the next victim. Unless you wish to volunteer.”
There was no longer the slightest trace of amusement in Adis’s hard eyes. “You are making a grave mistake.”
“Perhaps. But at this point in time, I have a wider margin for error than you do. I am waiting for your decision.”
Adis hesitated a long moment, and then he knelt next to the man who was clutching his ruined leg and picked up the long blade. He turned the cutting edge of the blade around so that it was facing him, thereby presenting no possible threat to Rajari. Then he slid it behind Rajari’s bonds and severed them with one quick stroke.
“Get up, Rajari,” Soleta said.
“I’m . . . not sure I can.”
“Then I will leave you here.”
“You . . . wouldn’t . . .”
Soleta’s face was unreadable. “One man is dead and another is crippled because they assumed that I was not as good as my word. I would hope you would not make that same miscalculation.”
That was all the incentive that Rajari needed. He rose on unsteady and fragile legs, wobbling slightly. He took a few steps toward Soleta and was actually smiling slightly, clearly pleased with himself that he was able to move at all.
And then, abruptly, the smile evaporated, to be placed by a look of total horror.
Soleta had no idea what was happening, and before she could fully register the change in his attitude, Rajari was shouting “Move!” and with all the strength in his weakened legs, he lunged forward and shoved her to one side. It was at that moment that she heard the shrill, discordant howl of a disruptor and then Rajari staggered, a huge splotch of green blood covering his chest.
The only thing that prevented him from hitting the floor was Soleta’s powerful arm which caught him.
And then, realizing that the move was a complete mistake, Soleta allowed the momentum of Rajari’s fall to take them both down. It was a move that saved their lives as another disruptor blast cut through the air right where they’d been standing. The blast missed them clean. It did, however, happen to nail the Romulan who was standing right next to Adis. It burned away the back of his head and he went down, clutching at air spasmodically, the body not yet acknowledging that the life was over.
But Soleta landed hard and badly, and
her elbow slammed into the floor, a jolt of pain washing down and causing the phaser to clatter from her hand.
For a moment, the three remaining Romulan guards, plus Adis, froze, as if unable to believe their good fortune. And then Adis shouted, “Get her!”
The shout unfroze them, and they charged.
Soleta shoved the unmoving Rajari aside and back-rolled, trying to get at the phaser. Just as she almost got to it, the foot of one of the Romulans kicked it just beyond her reach, sliding in between two stacks of crates. The move, however, brought his ankle close enough to her, and Soleta grabbed it with everything she had. She shoved upward, sending him stumbling back and crashing into Adis, who was waving his blade with the clear intention of using it. They both went down and suddenly there were Romulans on either side of her, grabbing her arms, slamming her against a stack of crates. But they didn’t have a solid enough grip on her, and one of her hands managed to spear forward and clamp firmly onto his shoulder, her anger-driven strength crushing his armor, allowing her to reach through to the vulnerable area. His head snapped around, his eyes went wide, and his body slackened as the Vulcan nerve pinch did its job.
The other Romulan, however, had a firm grip on Soleta’s wrist and was keeping her hand away from his shoulder. They struggled, and then Soleta spotted a sheathed blade in the belt of the Romulan she had just rendered unconscious. He was sagging to the floor, but her hand moved quickly enough to yank the blade free. She did not hesitate. The short blade flashed in her hand, slicing across his face, and the Romulan howled as he released her, reflexively grabbing for where she had carved him. His momentary lapse of focus was all Soleta needed as she grabbed him by the neck and sent him to sleep.
Then, instinctively, she grabbed him and held him in front of her, even as she turned to face Adis. She was jolted by a sudden thud, and there was a loud curse from Adis. She looked down and saw that Adis’s blade was still quivering from where it had thudded into her makeshift shield’s forehead.
The remaining guardsman and Adis came at her. She shoved the dead Romulan she was holding in front of her, and he careened into the oncoming assailants. Turning and moving as fast as she could, she clambered up one of the stacks of cartons nearby. Adis lunged at her and the stack swayed beneath her feet, tipped precariously, and then toppled forward. Soleta fell off backward. The guardsman, who was closer, let out a howl of protest, but it did him no good as the boxes toppled down upon him and he disappeared beneath them.