by Ilsa J. Bick
“Lights,” said Arava. “Half.”
Instantly, the interior of the warehouse was suffused with a dusky yellow light. The space was twice the size of a standard cargo bay and three times as high. The warehouse was packed with crates and containers stacked floor to ceiling in long precise rows running from the entrance to a larger set of doors at the very end. Halak browsed the containers for markings, or an indication of destination or origin, and found none. Understandable: Making things appear and disappear was Qadir’s stock and trade. He was sure some of the crates were legitimate, but most probably weren’t.
“Well,” said Arava, shrugging out of her cloak and tossing it onto a nearby barrel. Her face was a smooth oval, and her hair—a golden, honey blonde—spilled about her shoulders. “The prodigal son returns. Your timing stinks. What, did you think Qadir would just forget?”
Halak heard Batra’s sudden intake of breath. “Actually, I didn’t pick the time,” said Halak, choosing not to address what Qadir might, or might not forget. “Dalal contacted me. Said I had to talk some sense into you.”
“Sense.” Arava gave that nonlaugh again. She hugged her arms to her chest, as if she were cold. With her blonde hair and large, brown-black eyes, she looked very small to Halak, almost like a child. But there was a hard edge to her now, a cynicism and bitterness he didn’t remember. The Arava he’d left behind had been a young, fresh-faced woman. He saw now the changes that time—and tragedy—had inscribed on her features. A tracery of tiny lines fanned from the corners of her eyes and her face was white and pinched, with a furrow chiseled into either side of her nose, as if she never really found anything to smile about.
“Dalal doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” said Arava, crossly. “She’s meddling in things that aren’t her concern.”
“Really? She’s concerned enough about you to stay on this godforsaken planet.”
“That’s her choice.”
“Come on, Arava. Dalal’s known you since you were old enough to spit.”
Arava gave Halak a narrow look. “I’m fine.”
“If you’re with Qadir, you aren’t.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I won’t remind you who that sounds like.”
That stung, as he’d meant it to. Halak saw a flash of pain crease her brow. “That wasn’t fair,” she said.
“I don’t care about what’s fair. I care about what’s right. I care about living, and I care about you. Life isn’t fair, Arava. I’m just trying to help you stay alive, so we can have debates about how unfair life is when we’re old and gray.”
“I was born old. You, of all people, ought to know that.”
“You’re saying that the people who love you ought to look the other way? Let you choose a path that can only end very badly?”
“I know the risks.”
“Do you?” Halak erased the distance between them until he stood just centimeters away. He didn’t touch her, though he wanted to. Arava, Arava, please listen to me. ... “Do you really?”
Arava swallowed, a loud liquid sound in the sudden silence. Her eyes were bright, but her voice was firm. “I know what I’m doing. Dalal’s concern won’t change a thing. The risks have always been there, they’re not going to go away. And until I finish, no place I run will be far enough. As for risk,” she lifted her chin in the direction of his left arm, “you’re the one who ought to be worried. The way you’re holding yourself, looks to me like they cut you up pretty good.”
“They did all right. We did better.”
“Yeah? You think so? Let me tell you something, Samir. You walked away because you had Lady Luck on your side, nothing more and nothing less. Next time, maybe, you won’t be so lucky. Maybe Lady Luck’ll take a hike.”
“No, she won’t,” said Batra. “Not a chance in hell.”
Halak flashed her a tight, grateful smile before turning back to Arava. “Luck, no luck ... you know what I think? I think I was meant to walk away. Even out of uniform, my being in Starfleet has certain advantages. Kill me, and Qadir attracts too much attention. Scaring me off serves just fine. I think this, us meeting and contact with Starfleet”—he used his hand to indicate the space between them—“this is what Qadir wants to avoid.”
“You?” Arava made a derisive sound. “You’re too obvious. He’s worried about the ones he can’t see.”
“And how many of those are there?”
Alarm flickered across Arava’s face, and her eyes narrowed: a warning. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Samir.”
“I’m sorry.” Halak spread his hands in a placating gesture then lightly placed them on her shoulders. She was thinner than he remembered; the humps of her bones dug into his palms. “Look, I didn’t come all this way to fight with you.”
“Then what did you come for?” Arava shot back. She twisted away. “I don’t need lectures, Samir. I made my choice. I just need more time, that’s all.”
“Time?”
Arava’s eyes flicked to Batra and back to Halak. She arched her eyebrows. The question was there: Is it safe? Halak moved his head fractionally, side to side.
“Right.” Arava made a small sound in the back of her throat. Sighing, she scooped a hand through her golden hair. “Baatin was in deep, you know that. I’ve”—that quick sidelong glance to Batra again—“I’ve taken over where he left off, that’s all. It shouldn’t be much longer.”
This was what Halak had been afraid of. Baatin had been smart, careful. Trusted. And he was still just as dead. “Do you know how much longer?”
Arava chose her words with care. “I’ve done some ... negotiating. Depending upon what the higher-ups say, maybe as soon as next week, the week after. There’s a glitch, though. I’m not the only one who’s ... interested. But I can tell you that something’s up. There are new people in the organization, and there’s talk.”
“Talk?”
“Of men from the Orion Syndicate infiltrating the rank and file, working their way up. The problem is, no one knows exactly who.”
“You think it’s true?”
Arava hesitated then nodded. “There have been intercepts of some shipments. Others disappear before they reach their destination. Qadir thinks there’s a mole, maybe more than one. I’ve already been questioned, twice.”
“How close do you think he is?”
Arava considered. “Let me put it this way: I hear he’s getting a telepath next.”
“Then you’re running out of time.”
“Maybe. I told the ... contact, and she’s working on it.” Arava dragged in a deep breath. “Just a little longer, though. That’s all I need.”
“I can’t believe that you couldn’t leave now. Don’t you have enough to ... ?”
“Not quite yet. Look, I’ve worked long and hard to get where I am, and I’m not going to cash out now. I want to take as large a piece of Qadir with me as I can.”
“Baatin tried that.”
“And failed. Yes, I know,” said Arava, bitterly. “You think I don’t think about Baatin every damn day? Probably more than you ever will.”
“No,” said Halak, feeling a crush of guilt. “But this isn’t a contest.” He blew out, frustrated. “All right then. You’ve made up your mind. I’ll leave you alone.”
Arava jerked her head in a curt nod. “That’s what I want. Do you think you can get Dalal ... ?”
“She’s not going to budge a millimeter until you’re off-world.”
“Stubborn old mule.” A tiny smile flitted over Arava’s lips. “Remember the time I brought home that Vulcan sehlat? I thought Dalal was going to have a heart attack.”
“Yes, and I remember how set she was on getting rid of it, and how you cried all night until she gave in.” Halak grinned. “Damn thing nearly took my finger off the first time I tried petting it.”
“That’s because you didn’t smell right. It was just being territorial.” Arava’s expression softened. She walked to Halak, reached up, and cupped his fac
e in her hands. “A lot of memories. When I’m out of here, Samir, I promise ...”
“Sure,” said Halak, kissing Arava on the forehead. Then he saw Batra standing off to one side. Her face was pale; her lips were set. Halak was seized by an urge to tell her everything, right there—and discarded the impulse as suicidal. He could never tell her. He could never tell anyone.
But it’s not what you think. He tried to say this with his eyes. Ani, it’s not what you’re thinking. But Batra’s expression was unreadable.
Halak looked back down at Arava. “Sure,” he said again. “Sure.”
He tried to make certain that his smile made it to his eyes. Later, he was pretty sure it didn’t.
Chapter 10
Pressed against the slick stones of an apartment building across the street, the woman watched and waited. She’d seen them meet: Arava with her Bolian bodyguard, the commander, and a small woman with long black hair she didn’t recognize but who seemed to be with Halak. From a distance, she couldn’t tell if the woman was a local. She tended to doubt it. Something about the way the woman carried herself suggested a life that hadn’t been conditioned by deprivation, or the everyday struggle for simple survival. Another Starfleet? More than likely: She’d have to run a check when she had a moment, figure out the likely candidates aboard Enterprise.
She glanced over her shoulder every few moments, though she’d set up proximity alarms (silent, so only she would know, via a microtransceiver tucked in her right ear, if someone got within twenty meters). She was certain she hadn’t been followed, but operatives didn’t stay alive on Farius Prime for long if they weren’t cautious. (Two of her immediate predecessors had met ignominious ends: one with a knife wound through the heart in what was, putatively, a barroom brawl, and the other who’d been reduced to an oily smudge with a submolecular pattern disrupter. The weapon was illegal as sin, and very efficient.) She’d hung well back, letting the tracking device she’d slipped into the clasp of Arava’s cloak do the work for her.
All the while she waited for Halak to reemerge, the question kept bouncing around her brain: What was he doing here? It wasn’t as if coming to Farius Prime was illegal; it wasn’t a proscribed or quarantined world. But Farius Prime was the type of planet most people were happy to see receding in the distance.
And the point was Halak was here, and he was making contact with Arava. She fretted. Trouble there. She’d worked hard to make things come off with Arava; they were at a very delicate stage in their negotiations; and now if Halak interfered ... A lot of work, a lot of time—a lot of money greasing the appropriate palms—it would all be for nothing if Halak screwed up the works.
She considered, briefly, that Halak might be one of her own. There had been rumors floating around about that Ryn mission, the one before he transferred to Enterprise. Eight months of down time might be an appropriate period for someone to go to ground. But she couldn’t believe he’d been deployed to the same theater without someone giving her a head’s up, not when things were this delicate.
The Bolian, Matsaro, worried her, too. She knew the man by reputation, of course. A Qatala man for years, but she had her ear to the ground, and there were rumors that the Bolian wanted more than Qadir was willing to give. Except when she’d told Arava, Arava shrugged her off, and that made her uneasy. Arava was too damned sure of herself, not willing to listen to reason, and she put too much store in her being the only way, after Baatin was dead, of anyone getting into the Qatala.
Well, times had changed, and she’d recruited another source. No sense putting all her eggs in Arava’s basket.
She breathed a little easier when, after a half hour, Halak and the small woman emerged. There was a brief exchange, and then Arava went one way; the Bolian, Halak, and the woman went another. Matsaro was probably escorting Halak off-world. She hoped so. She didn’t need the complications.
She checked the time. Good: over three hours before she and Arava were scheduled to make contact. Time enough for her to get some answers.
A half hour later, she was in her tiny apartment, keying in her authorization code to open a secured channel.
Her CO answered right away, prompting her to wonder if the woman ever slept. “Batanides.”
Then, when she recognized her caller, SI Commander Marta Batanides’s piercing blue eyes narrowed with concern. “Burke. You’re on an emergency channel, and a day early. What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”
“Plenty,” said Starfleet Intelligence Special Agent Laura Burke, her tone clipped and urgent. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about Halak?”
Chapter 11
What the hell was that?
The pain was so intense and yet so fleeting that Ven Kaldarren’s mind barely had time to register that the sensation was pain until it had flowed through and over him, the way a wall of water rushes toward shore. Kaldarren’s vision blacked, and the space behind his eyes blazed with a searing, brilliant mind-image: something that was white, swirling, luminous. Something on the edge of becoming.
And then, just as quickly, the mind-image was gone. So was the pain. Kaldarren felt the pain ebb and retreat, emptying out like a wave scouring sand. Even as it left him, Kaldarren scrambled after the mind-image, trying vainly to grab hold of something as insubstantial as thought.
What was that? Who are you? Kaldarren opened his mind—carefully (he’d almost had his head blown off, after all)—and waited. Tell me, please. Don’t be afraid.
Nothing.
He wasn’t altogether surprised. The contact had felt inadvertent and inchoate, like half-formed thoughts leaking around and over the edges of an alien mind, rather than something directed or exploratory. He couldn’t even tell if the mind-image had originated on the ship, or from the surface of the planet about which they’d slipped into orbit thirty minutes ago.
(Where are the boys?)
Mind still aching from the ferocity of the contact, Kaldarren grappled with residual sensations left from the mind-image, trying to put a name to the face, as it were. He couldn’t, though there was something almost familiar about the contact, as if he’d known the mind behind the thought. But the mind-image was fading fast, thinning like a cloud dissipating under a hot sun. In the next moment, it was gone.
A voice rasped across his consciousness, like nails biting into sandpaper. “... you listening?”
“Yes.” Blinking, Kaldarren looked down on the sullen, angry features that belonged to Su Chen-Mai, and reality leaked back little by little. Kaldarren was aware now of the ship, its bridge, and that he’d come to the bridge of their small vessel a half hour after Jase had left their quarters.
Chen-Mai, hands on hips, glared up at him. Lam Leahru-Mar, the Naxeran, sat in the pilot’s chair, his frills trembling with anxiety. Like their quarters below deck, the bridge was very small, with barely enough room for a pilot and copilot, but that was because Chen-Mai was a smuggler and smugglers didn’t waste precious cargo space.
“Yes, of course, I’m listening,” Kaldarren lied.
“Then what do you think? You picking up anything, or what?” Chen-Mai rapped. He was a square man, with a moon-shaped face and narrow eyes, and he was very bald. He wasn’t tall but muscular and stocky, and when he became agitated—something that happened often enough—his sallow cheeks mottled with red splotches that made him look as if he’d just come in from the cold.
“I don’t think anything,” said Kaldarren. Best not to mention what he’d experienced until he understood what it meant: whether the image was thought-residua imprinted upon the planet from its long-dead inhabitants, or the true touch of an alien mind that was still very much alive.
“I don’t think that I’ll know anything until we get down to the surface. I’ve told you before, Chen-Mai, my abilities are limited by distance.” Kaldarren didn’t volunteer that who or whatever had touched his mind was much more powerful. “I think that our most pressing concern has got to be the Cardassians.”
Leahru-Mar made a nervous click in
the back of his throat. “He’s right about that. How do we know your information’s good?”
“It’s good,” said Chen-Mai, his tone curt. “Their patrols come through here every fourteen days. As long as you did your job and kept them from seeing us, then we’ve got that long to find the portal.”
Despite his anxiety, Leahru-Mar’s ebony features turned peevish. “I did my job. We’re alive, aren’t we? No Cardassians shooting at us. Besides, it wasn’t all that hard to hide the ship. We’re small, and this is a binary star system. The primary went supernova, and the neutron star that’s left is accreting matter and gas from the brown star’s heliosphere, and ...”
“English.” Chen-Mai glowered. (He might have been born under the sign of the monkey, but he complained like a goat.) “In English.”
Leahru-Mar opened his mouth then seemed to reconsider whatever it was he’d been about to say. Instead, he punched up a display on the bridge’s viewscreen. A grid display wavered into focus, showing a privileged view of the binary system: The neutron star, embedded within a large nebula, was coded yellow. The slightly larger brown star, with its larger orbit, was orange.
“It’s pretty basic. You have a nebula left over from the time when this binary’s primary star went supernova. All that ionized gas and plasma makes it tough for anyone to see us, though it also works the other way. It makes it hard for us to see them. The distance between the two stars is point-zero-three AU, so the orbits are fast. About three solar days, give or take. Again, that works to our advantage because the close proximity means that those plasma streamers,” Leahru-Mar brought up twin red whorls spiraling from the orange-colored brown star toward the neutron star, “are highly volatile. Plus, this isn’t your usual neutron star. It’s a magnetar; it’s generating an intense magnetic field because the spin is so fast. So, for want of a better description, the whole place is one big magnetic and radioactive sink. Again, this works to our advantage because not only are signals subtended by the magnetic field, but the area’s ion-saturated because the neutron star’s stealing matter from the brown star. In turn, those accretion plasma streamers make for a very strong stellar wind.”