by Ilsa J. Bick
Yes—the dithparus gathered themselves—yes.
“Dad! No, stay with me, please! Dad!” Jase shrieked. “No!”
Suddenly, the air in the chamber was bright and it whirled, rushing with the force of a gathering storm. Pahl stiffened, screamed; then the boy crumpled to the stone floor. The light in the chamber spasmed then contracted and gathered around Kaldarren, looping tighter and tighter and tighter.
“Dad, no!” Jase shouted. His face was wet. “Don’t!”
“Jase!” Kaldarren gnashed at his lips and tasted fresh blood. “Son, run! Run! I don’t know how long ... I don’t ... !”
He broke off, clutched at his head, his soul spilling between his fingers like water. “Son, please, run, while there’s still time, run, Jase, ru ...”
And then Ven Kaldarren’s mind burst in two. He gave a long, agonized scream as his soul was torn out and the others poured in, choking him, crowding into his mind. Dimly, he heard his son crying out for the man Kaldarren no longer was, but there was nothing Kaldarren could do for Jase now because his mind was hurtling toward darkness, toward oblivion. Kaldarren felt his strength leave him, and then the bite of stone through his suit, against his knees. And then he was on his back, his vision darkening.
“Rachel,” Kaldarren choked, his throat raw and bloody. “Rachel.”
Chapter 33
“What?” Garrett looked over at Stern, who was glowering over her tricorder. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Stern, her voice slightly tinny and attenuated over her environmental suit’s comm unit.
“I could have sworn.”
“Not me,” said Stern, and then she looked up. “Although with all the distortion from the magnetic field here, maybe your comchannel caught a glitch.”
“Maybe,” said Garrett, though she was doubtful. Her fingers found her comm unit controls, and she double-checked the frequency and found that it was right where she’d set it before they left the shuttlecraft, a short distance from two landskimmers they’d spied from the air, and started down this tunnel.
Odd. She knew she’d heard something, someone. Familiar voice, too. Someone on the same channel? Maybe the Enterprise? No, then Stern should have heard it. Garrett cocked her head, listened. She was aware of how dark the tunnel was around them, how deep underground they were, and how far they still had to go. She wasn’t claustrophobic, and the dark didn’t bother her, but the space around her felt strange. Crowded and close: the same way she felt in a turbolift when too many people crammed into too small a space. Don’t get spooked. Her eyes roved over the red-hued rock and noted where tools had bitten into the hard stone. Dead planet, empty biosphere—well, not quite empty, it was clear that someone had been there, and not too long ago, from the looks of the place. She and Stern had reconnoitered the biosphere just long enough to take note of a medium-range shuttle, and the general disarray. As if whoever had been there had left in a hurry.
After another few moments of listening, Garrett gave up and nodded toward Stern’s tricorder. “You still reading atmosphere in there?”
“Yup, and heat, plus some sort of organized energy signature. And that neuromagnetic field, it’s still there. Stronger than we read on the ship.”
“What about life signs?”
“Now that.” Stern grunted. “Reads like a convention down there.”
“How many?”
“A lot. Five humanoid and, oh, hell.” Stern jiggled her tricorder then smacked it with the side of her gloved hand. “Damn thing.”
“Very high tech.”
“Whatever works,” said Stern. She squinted. “Sorry, Rachel, they’re not all resolving. Like I said, I read at least five humanoids. Can’t tell you what they are either, what species. And there’s a whole bunch of other readings.”
“Define bunch. Are they life-forms?”
Stern made a piffling sound with her lips. “Life-forms. It’s a damn big galaxy, Rachel. I’m reading high-energy, almost like ionized plasma. But they’re contained, cohesive. I’m just not sure. I’ll tell you something, though. They remind me of something I read once. Mac talked about them in his seminars on xenobiology. You remember the Organians?”
“Who doesn’t? Organian Peace Treaty, 2267,” Garrett recited, “imposed by the Organians to prevent war between the Klingons and the Federation. Are you saying that these are Organians?”
“Not quite. The Organians were noncorporeal life forms, though: pure energy, pure thought. Mac was there, you know. Well, his captain was, anyway, Kirk, and his first officer, Spock. Anyway, they encountered a similar class of beings, two years later. Zetarians, they were called. Same deal: highly cohesive noncorporeal life-forms.”
“Are you telling me that’s what you’re reading here?”
“No, but it’s close. I’d have to get further in, I think, past all this damned interference, but there’s energy in there, and a lot of it. Neuromagnetic, for sure.”
Garrett was tempted to try to decipher the readings herself but doubted she’d have any more luck than Stern. “We saw two skimmers. Could whatever you’re reading have come from the biosphere?”
“I doubt it. That biosphere was made to handle our kind, not,” Stern held her tricorder up, gave it a waggle, “this.”
“Okay,” said Garrett, though it wasn’t. “What about this panel? You sure about its being the source?”
“Absolutely, and I’ll tell you something else. This thing’s been opened three times now.”
Garrett was startled. “Three? But we only saw two alarms.”
“On the Enterprise. I know.” Stern gave her captain a significant look. “I don’t make these things up. You’d never catch it if you weren’t looking for it; the resonance band’s only slightly above that for Halak’s transponder, which was the reason we caught it the first time around. Only the second time, whoever opened it made a mistake. See here?” Stern pointed to a magnetic variance signature on her tricorder. “The first time, whoever did this got it right on the money. The second time, though, someone keyed in the wrong sequence to reverse polarity going in. Botched it.”
“And that set off the alarm.”
Stern nodded. “Then they seemed to have gotten it right. But the third time, well, here, look for yourself.”
Garrett thumbed through the entries. “Ionized debris, trace ferrous ... Jo, this reads like a phaser blast. Recent, too.”
“Like within the last hour.”
“But then why isn’t the panel damaged? Or the surrounding rock?”
“Beats me. All I can tell you, whoever did this doesn’t have a hell of a lot of finesse, or patience. Not that hard to figure out, you know; this isn’t exactly twenty-fourth century state of the art technology here. But whoever was here just didn’t care, and that’s why the alarm has read continuous, only at a higher frequency. You could go in and out a hundred times now, and the alarm wouldn’t be any different.”
“Well, we ought to be able to do the same trick, minus the phaser.”
“But that’s weird. Phaser blast ought to have taken that thing right out of commission. From the looks of it, though, all it did was ramp up the alarm, only silently.”
“Your point?”
“Hell, I don’t know if I have a point. But I’ll tell you, this is one of the few times I wish we could just beam in, do our rescue, presuming whoever’s down there wants to be rescued, and then beam the heck back out.”
“We went over that. Too much ...”
“Right, right,” Stern interrupted impatiently, “too much interference from the magnetic field. Don’t forget, I was there when you hatched this cockamamie plan. And I’ll tell you something right now. You can bet whoever’s out there listening won’t be far off. One blip, you can ignore. But not when it’s screaming. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”
“Noted.” Handing Stern back her tricorder, Garrett ran her eyes over the seam of the panel. “What’s immediately beyond this?”
&
nbsp; “Another door. Passage beyond that. Tunnels. Beyond them, looks like a maze of tunnels, like an anthill. But, for my money, this is a kind of antiquated airlock.”
“So no explosive decompression,” said Garrett, pulling out her phaser. “Well, if someone’s coming, I guess we’d better get our asses in gear, don’t you think?”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” said Stern. She keyed in the sequence to open the panel: red ... red ... red ... double green. Watched as her tricorder read air evacuating from the lock. The door slid open. Stern slung her tricorder over her shoulder. “Fools go gladly.”
“Where angels fear to tread.” Garrett thumbed her phaser to setting two. “No one ever accused me of being an angel.”
“What do you mean, boy?” Chen-Mai felt so much blood choking his face, he thought he probably looked as purple as a bruised plum. He glared down at Jase, who knelt by Ven Kaldarren. “What’s wrong with your father? Speak sense!”
“But I’m trying to tell you,” Jase said, desperation in his voice. He held his father’s head in his lap. Kaldarren grimaced, moaned. His face was stained with sweat and blood; his shoulder-length black hair clung in wet tendrils to his neck. Every few seconds, a tremor shuddered through his body. “They’re here, and they’ve got him! Don’t you see them? They’re all over the place!”
“Who? All I see is you, that boy,” he jerked his head toward the prostrate figure of Pahl, “and your father.”
Kaldarren. Chen-Mai had to restrain himself from giving Kaldarren a swift kick in the kidneys. After Chen-Mai had blasted that panel blocking their way into the tunnel (and then that panel just slid open, who built such a stupid mechanism?), he and Mar had crept down the tunnel, half-expecting Kaldarren to ambush them at any second. What they were not prepared for was a treasure trove. Jevonite, gold, platinum, fabulous gems: The sheer amount of treasure spilling out of rock crystal chests and heaped in piles around the red stone floor was simply dazzling. There was little doubt that they were a hair’s breadth away from being rich beyond their wildest dreams. Both he and Mar had been so awestruck they hadn’t budged until they heard Jase’s frantic cries mingled with Kaldarren’s screams.
Well, the Betazoid did look bad. He watched as Kaldarren writhed, the cords of Kaldarren’s muscles standing out along his neck. And his screams, Chen-Mai thought, they were loud enough to wake the dead.
But he didn’t understand any of this. Chen-Mai’s look took in the chamber. Pahl, slumped in his uncle’s lap. That silver mask. Chen-Mai plucked it up between two fingers and held it up in a soft silver light that washed over the chamber from somewhere high above. (Recessed light panels, Chen-Mai thought absently.) His eyes traveled over the simple contours of what was otherwise an unremarkable piece of what? Art?
“Don’t,” said Jase. He was staring at the mask, a wild expression on his face. “Don’t put it on!”
“And why would I do that?” Chen-Mai exhaled a harsh laugh, flipped the mask with a short, quick movement. (It doesn’t look that valuable, not worth bothering over, just one of Kaldarren’s useless artifacts.) The metal clattered against stone: a dull, clicking sound. “But he found something, right? Your father? How else do you explain what’s going on here?”
“Leave the boy alone.”
Chen-Mai swung his head toward Mar, who cradled Pahl in his arms. “What?”
“You heard me,” said Mar. “Pahl’s hurt, and any fool can see the Betazoid’s sick. Leave the boy alone, can’t you? We’ve got the money. Let’s get out, now.”
“But I want to know,” said Chen-Mai. He hooked a thumb at Kaldarren. “I want to know what he’s found out!”
“Well, I don’t.” Mar gave Kaldarren a long look before his golden eyes flipped up to Chen-Mai. “And you shouldn’t either, if you’ve got any brains. Look at him. You want to end up like that?”
“The boy hasn’t.”
“But Pahl has.” Mar cupped the unconscious boy’s cheek, smooth as cold wax, in one hand. “Look, there’s no portal. You see any portal? Whatever’s going on here, it’s for these telepaths, it’s stuff we don’t understand! I say we just leave, now. We take some of the jevonite back there, to show that we mean what we say, and we get out. We rendezvous with Talma, and then she can send someone back to collect the rest. We take our money and be thankful.”
“No,” said Jase, his face streaked and shiny with tears. “No, please, don’t leave us here, don’t!”
Kaldarren moaned. “No ... no!”
“No what?” Chen-Mai squatted down on his haunches. “No, we don’t leave your kid? No, we don’t take the money? What? What did you find, Betazoid?”
Kaldarren’s eyelids fluttered, his eyes roving wildly from side to side. “No good,” Kaldarren managed at last. “No good.”
Those simple words seemed to cost him. He sagged back again, panting.
“No good?” Chen-Mai repeated. He reached out with one hand and gave Kaldarren a hard poke in the ribs. Kaldarren gave a short cry. “No good about what?”
“Stop!” Jase pleaded. “Stop, please!”
“Shut up.” And to Kaldarren: “No good about what? What?”
Kaldarren’s chest heaved. “No good to you,” Kaldarren managed, his breath hitching in the back of his throat. “No portal. But they’re here, they’re here.”
“They?” Chen-Mai frowned. “What, the same ghosts your kid ... ?”
“Get out.” Kaldarren moved his head the way a feverish man does in a delirium. “Get ... out, get out before it’s too ... too late ... I can’t hold them, I can’t ...”
“Please,” said Jase again, clutching his father’s hand. “Please, you’ve got to help him! Take us with you, please!”
Chen-Mai stared down at Kaldarren’s flushed, sweat-soaked face for a long moment. Then his lip curled and, cursing, he pushed himself to his feet.
“I’ll help him,” said Chen-Mai, jerking his phaser free. “I’ll help him right now.”
Jase screamed. “No!”
“Wait,” cried Mar. “Chen-Mai, stop!”
“No, no!” Uncoiling, Jase launched himself at the stocky man. Chen-Mai staggered back then cut Jase a vicious blow across the face. Jase cried out, reeling back before collapsing against a wall. Blood gushed from his mouth.
“Chen-Mai!” Mar shouted, horrified. He started to his feet. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up!” Chen-Mai threw the words over his shoulder. He leveled his phaser at Jase. “They’re trouble, don’t you understand? They’re nothing but trouble!”
“But he’s a kid!”
“So what? What, you’re going to save him?”
“No,” said Mar, faltering. He turned away, ashamed. “It’s just ...”
“Then shut up, Mar!” Chen-Mai flicked his phaser to kill. “If you’ve got nothing to add, then shut the hell up!”
“Please,” Jase sobbed, blood drooling from his lips, “please, don’t hurt my dad, please.”
“Look at it this way,” said Chen-Mai, leveling his phaser at Jase. “I do you first, you won’t have to watch.”
“Freeze!” The command cut through the air like a knife. “Right there! Don’t move, don’t so much as goddamn breathe!”
Mar froze. Chen-Mai flinched then whirled on his heel, weapon hand coming up for a shot.
There was a high-pitched whine, a flash of light, and the phaser blast caught his weapon hand. Shrieking, Chen-Mai spun around; his phaser clattered to the stone floor.
“I said,” Garrett readied her phaser for another blast, “don’t goddamn move.”
“Mom?” Jase tried pushing himself from the stone floor. “Mom?”
At the sound of her son’s voice, Garrett started, blinked as if she’d been struck. An instant later, the color drained from her face. Her eyes flicked over to the far wall then down to Kaldarren.
“Jase?” she whispered in disbelief. She took a step forward. “Ven?”
“Oh, Lord,” said Stern. She stood at Garret’s elbow
, her own phaser out and ready. “What the hell?”
“Ven,” Garrett said again, starting forward. “Jase, what’s wrong with your father? Ven, I don’t understand, what ... ?”
It was the only opening Chen-Mai needed. In a blur of movement, he had swept up his phaser with his good hand and come up behind Jase, locking the boy’s neck in a stranglehold with his forearm.
“All right,” said Chen-Mai, jamming the muzzle of his phaser against Jase’s temple. “Everyone, drop your phasers. Nice and easy.”
Chapter 34
“A shuttlepod?” Servos protesting, Bat-Levi crossed to stand behind Glemoor at his station next to Castillo. “Are you sure?”
“Positive, Commander. Sensors indicate a Vulcan shuttlepod heading for the planet’s surface, and Commander Halak’s transponder signal indicates that he is on board.” Glemoor twisted his head around to look up at Bat-Levi. “Those shuttlepods are short-range vessels.”
“I know. I think it’s safe to assume they didn’t give him a ship for his own amusement. Who’s with him?”
“Life signs read Vulcan.”
“So Fake Burke is still aboard the T’Pol, and that means she’s nearby. Where?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t be precise.”
Bat-Levi gave the Naxeran a dry look. “Guess.”
Glemoor blinked. “Well, I guess the T’Pol’s hidden behind the planet’s moon, or the planet itself.”
“Yeah, that’s what I would do.” Bat-Levi watched the course of the small green blip of the shuttlepod as it angled in toward the surface. “The fact that the shuttlepod’s headed down also means they don’t know we’re here.”
“Very likely. A Vulcan warpshuttle would have limited sensor capabilities. The question is what do we do now?”
Bat-Levi debated. She rejected as useless any speculation as to why the T’Pol was in the vicinity. They had no way of knowing, and this wasn’t her primary concern at the moment. Safeguarding the crew was. Bat-Levi wanted to try hailing Garrett but knew not only that their signal was unlikely to pierce through the interference, but this risked revealing their position. Not that she worried about T’Pol’s firepower: Enterprise won that particular argument, hands down. The Cardassians, however, were a different matter.