STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book Four - Genesis Force

by John Vornholt

  “There’s got to be a mistake,” rasped Marla. “That can’t be Aluwna. I didn’t expect to see cities, but where are the oceans? Where are the deserts?”

  “There’s no mistake,” said Vilo Garlet, peering at the sensor readings scrolling across his science console. “This is exactly where Aluwna should be. The mass, diameter, and axial rotation are the same. That is our homeworld.”

  “We were told to expect this,” said Tejharet softly.

  Marla Karuw snarled with anger. “This isn’t terraforming! This is a completely different planet.” She stopped her rant and rubbed her eyes, trying to control her emotions. “All right, the first order of business is to get the satellites back into their geosynchronous orbits, then we’ll have to erect new transporter stations ... lots of them. We can save power by making them unidirectional—down to Aluwna only.”

  “Shouldn’t we go there and explore first?” asked Tejharet. “We may find that Ambassador Worf is right ... that we should relocate.”

  Marla scoffed at the suggestion. “Why should we relocate to another new, untamed planet that isn’t our own? We’ve got one of those right here, and it already belongs to us. Besides ... Vilo, tell them what you told me earlier.”

  The other renegade scientist in the group looked up from his readouts. “According to Federation data, the closest planet that would be suitable is almost fifteen light-years away. It would be dangerous to haul the satellites that far, and we can’t be guaranteed that the Klingons will be here to help us tomorrow or the next day. For all we know, this could be the beginning of some huge war. Overseer, Regent—you did all you could do under the circumstances, but we had better make do with this world. It’s the only one we’ve got.”

  [121] “We need to commandeer all the shuttlecraft and orbiters.” ordered Marla Karuw. “Get technicians on them and begin to put the satellites back into orbit. Hail the Doghjey and ask them for help—they must have shuttlecraft, too.”

  “Yes, Regent,” said Captain Uzel with a slight bow. “This will take some time.”

  “Then let’s get started,” replied Karuw. “Time is not our ally. Assemble the work crews and the shuttles. I want to see what it’s like down there firsthand. When the Klingons send an away team down to the planet, I want to be with them. Until then, Vilo and I will be in the laboratory.”

  She nodded to her fellow scientist, and the two of them strode quickly off the bridge.

  “What do you mean they want to commandeer my shuttlecraft?” snapped Seeress Jenoset. “Do they know who I am?”

  “They don’t seem to care,” replied the pilot, Kanow. “These orders come directly from the regent. We’re supposed to enter the shuttlebay of the Darzor immediately, and all passengers are supposed to vacate.”

  “The impertinence!” cried Jenoset.

  Farlo Fuzwik watched his much older wife, thinking that he would like to see her when she wasn’t angry and indignant. At their wedding ceremony, she had been polite and courtly, and then she had wept like a child when they left Aluwna. Those were the only two times when Jenoset had not been outraged over imagined and real injustices. If he was going to be married to her, he at least wanted to like her a little.

  While the seeress continued to sputter in anger, Padrin gently took her hand. “Come on, my dear, you’ve been dying to get off this craft for two days now. It’s finally time to see something else and I, for one, am ready. What about you, Farlo?”

  [122] “I’m ready,” said the lad, jumping to his feet. “Do you think we’ll go down to the surface soon?”

  Padrin shivered at the idea. “I hope they build some facilities first. I’ve never been good at camping out in the woods.”

  “Will everyone please take a seat,” ordered the pilot. “We’ll be entering the shuttlebay soon.”

  Farlo took his seat along with the other passengers, all of whom were trying to avoid the seeress, who was still pouting. It had been night when their shuttlecraft left Aluwna in a big hurry, and he hadn’t gotten a chance to see the planet from space. The lad had no frame of reference to know what was missing, or what had been added, but it looked like a wild, primitive place from way up in orbit. He was still gloomy over losing Candra and so many other friends in the capital city, but it was strangely exciting to return and face a new beginning. Farlo kept hoping that everyone had been wrong about the Genesis Wave, and maybe it hadn’t wreaked as much havoc as they thought it would. Maybe some people had been spared.

  It was also thrilling to ride the small ship into the shuttlebay of the royal yacht, and he was amazed by how gracefully the pilot eased the craft into the dock. As soon as the vessel came to rest, a mass of people emerged from double doors, and most of them were carrying equipment. Farlo wanted to do something to help, but everyone thought of him as just another high breed, worthless except for making more high breeds. Maybe in the new Aluwna there wouldn’t be a leisure class of people, he told himself, and everyone would have to work. There certainly wouldn’t be much need for thieves anymore, as there was probably nothing to steal.

  “I hope they have proper quarters for me,” grumbled Seeress Jenoset as they filed out of the shuttlecraft.

  “You might have to sleep with your husbands,” joked Padrin. Although Farlo smiled, the seeress narrowed her eyes with annoyance at Uncle Padrin.

  [123] The boy wasn’t expecting any kind of welcome, so he was amazed when someone charged out of the waiting crowd and ran toward him. “Farlo!” cried a voice.

  His breath caught in his throat, and he blinked in amazement—because it was a ghost. “Candra?” he rasped in disbelief.

  There was nothing ghostly about the hug she gave him, and both of them dissolved into tears as they clung to each other.

  “Move along!” said an impatient technician, shoving them out of the way so he could load his equipment. Seeress Jenoset also fixed him with a baleful glare, but she said nothing to spoil the happy reunion. She was met by an older, regally dressed man, who must have been the overseer, although he looked older and more gaunt than he remembered. Farlo didn’t care about any of the high breeds, the workers, the crew, or anyone else on the ship—not as long as his best friend, Candra, had returned to him.

  “How ... did you ... Are you okay?” he stammered.

  “I’m okay,” she answered with a grin. “I’ll tell you how I got out when we’re alone.”

  “New passengers to the mess hall for assignment,” announced a crew member. “Please move along, because we’ve got more shuttlecraft to bring in.”

  The two young people dashed off ahead of the others, with Candra anxious to tell Farlo her story. As soon as they were out of earshot, she said, “I was really mad after I left you, and I almost threw away the brooch and the black tube. It was a good thing I didn’t, because they saved my lives. There was a lot of screaming and fighting after the lottery survivors were announced, and I broke into a store.”

  “I bet you were looking for something to eat,” said Farlo with a grin, “like you always are.”

  Candra laughed. “I was! Hey, why shouldn’t I be comfortable if I’m going to die? But there was already a mob of people in [124] there, and they didn’t want anyone else. They chased me down and cornered me, and I tapped the brooch to save myself. I didn’t expect it to work, but it did! A few instants later, I was in a Federation runabout with two men, and they really wanted this.”

  She held up the small ebony tube the two of them had stolen days ago. “But this is yours,” she whispered. “You’re the one who really needs it.”

  “A perfume mister?” asked Farlo puzzledly. “I don’t think I need—”

  “Believe me, you do.” Candra stopped to look around the crowded corridor; then she pulled her friend into a doorway and cupped her hand to whisper into his ear, “You aren’t really a high breed. Sniffing this before Padrin tested you is what made them think you had all that royal blood. You sniffed it, right?”

  Farlo nodded in astonishment. “Yeah,
I did. But I don’t get it—”

  “Listen to me.” She stared pointedly into his eyes. “One of the men is a genetic scientist named Vilo Garlet—he’s on this ship—and he made this device in order to fool their DNA sensors. And it works! You’re proof of that. You have to sniff it again whenever they want to test your breeding. Otherwise, you’ll be a nobody again.”

  She pressed the small cylinder into his hand, and Farlo gaped at his friend. “But if they know it’s fake, won’t they tell someone?” he asked.

  “No,” answered Candra. “The other man was a Romulan—people here think he’s a Vulcan—and he’s gone home. Vilo Garlet promised me that he would keep your secret from everyone, because the Genesis Wave made his plans pointless. We both owe our lives to this little black tube.”

  Holding his breath, Farlo lifted the object and stared at it. “I wondered about that,” he breathed. “I never felt like a high breed. But I’m still married to the seeress.”

  [125] “Yeah, I know,” muttered Candra. “We can’t do anything about that now, but maybe soon we can run away ... or something.”

  Farlo carefully hid the tube in the inner breast pocket of his fine silky tunic. “Thanks, Candra. You’re the best friend anybody ever had.”

  “I know,” she answered with a chuckle. “You tried to help me, too, but I was too stubborn. I didn’t want to share you with that older lady. Have the two of you, er ... have you done anything?”

  “No, and we can’t,” muttered Farlo with sudden realization. “If I did get her pregnant, she’d have a low-breed baby, and everyone would know I was a fake.”

  “Well, keep away from her as much as you can,” cautioned Candra. “Come on, I’ll show you where the mess hall is. We’re all pretty crammed together on this ship, but they’ll probably give you a nice room.”

  “I deserve it,” joked Farlo, his spirits soaring. With Candra back at his side, he could enjoy this crazy adventure, no matter what happened.

  “I warn you, Father, I wouldn’t use the transporters to go down there,” said the young Klingon on the viewscreen. Alexander Rozhenko was slightly built for a Klingon, but he had a presence and outspokenness that belied his youth. “There’s too much residual radiation from protomatter fission and thermonuclear reaction, and our biofilters may not be familiar with any of the microbes. I say we take a shuttlecraft down.”

  “We?” asked Worf with amusement. “Are you coming on the away team with us?”

  “I thought I would,” answered the young Klingon, who was raised on Earth, like his father. He had been slower to embrace Klingon customs and heritage, but he was making up for lost [126] time by serving in the Klingon Defense Force. “You’ll need somebody on tricorder.”

  “There is a growing list of people who want to go,” said Worf, “including Jeremy, the overseer, and Regent Karuw.” The ambassador frowned in thought, then added, “The regent is not going to be happy to hear that we can’t use transporters, because she wants to get her people out of those pattern buffers.”

  “I know,” replied Alexander, “but it’s not safe yet. Perhaps by the time we return all the satellites to orbit, it will be. So when do we go down to Aluwna?”

  “All of our shuttlecraft are being used to maneuver the satellites back into orbit,” answered Worf. “Realistically, I would say another two hours, after we run more scans. I’ll inform you and your captain when it’s time to go.”

  “Very well, Father. Rozhenko out.” The image faded from the viewscreen in Worf’s spartan quarters on the Doghjey, and the big Klingon sat back in his seat and smiled. There had been a time, not long ago, when his biological son could hardly stand to be in the same room with him. He hadn’t even wanted to serve on the same ship with Worf during the Dominion War, but that time together had started healing the wounds. Marrying Jadzia Dax and giving Alexander a prominent role in the wedding had further cemented their growing bond. Now it was like they had never been apart, and Worf relished these days together, no matter how fraught with danger they were. He knew that circumstances would probably separate them again, sooner or later, but he was going to enjoy the time until then. That is, if one could enjoy anything to do with the Genesis Wave.

  Grunting because his ribs were still sore from his bat’leth match with Jeremy, Worf rose to his feet and stretched. Serving with both his boys had taken him back to his early days aboard the Enterprise, when he had been young, headstrong, and somewhat romantic. Well, I’m still headstrong, thought Worf. He was [127] cautious enough to make sure that the majority of crew on the landing party to Aluwna would be warriors, armed to the teeth, and he was taking no chances with his two sons and various Aluwnan dignitaries along for the ride. Worf hoped the Aluwnans’ return to their world would go smoothly, but he felt an ominous dread that it wouldn’t.

  For some time, Farlo and Candra just sat in the mess hall with other refugees, most of them family of the Darzor crew. Of course, they sat apart and were waited on by servers from the kitchen, owing to Farlo’s elevated status, which made both of them chuckle. Farlo was relieved to hear that he wasn’t a real high breed but that he was playing some kind of complex scam on the royal family, because that fit in with his concept of himself as a young rogue. With Candra at his side, it was like old times, living by their wits and coming out on top, when so many others had perished. Let them think he was stuffy and highbred; now that he knew he was playing a role, he could enjoy it.

  The lad kept his best ally hidden yet close to him, feeling often in his interior pocket for the black perfume mister. This was all that he needed to succeed, and he planned to keep playing the game until he and Candra could escape undetected. Figuring that his status would allow them to tour the ship, he was about to suggest they leave when the door whooshed open, and all conversation in the mess hall ended. Everyone turned to see the new regent, Marla Karuw, enter the crowded hall with two constables at her side.

  Candra quickly whispered in his ear, “I’m staying in her room, and she seems to like me. Everyone else is scared of her.”

  “I’m used to dealing with those kind,” said Farlo with a sly smile. They stopped their conversation, too, because it was clear that Regent Karuw was headed in their direction.

  She stopped at the table and looked directly at the young lady. “Hello, Candra, I see you found your friend.”

  [128] “Yes, I did,” said the youth gratefully. She looked at her old chum and asked, “What is your title?”

  “Seeress Consort Farlo Fuzwik,” he answered gravely, trying not to smile. He nodded at the regent and asked, “Would you like to join us?”

  “I would,” she answered, glancing at a constable, who immediately procured a chair for her. She nodded at the guards, and they moved a few steps away but kept watchful.

  “I had never met you,” said the regent. “In all the activity, it was kind of odd for the seeress to marry again, when she had been with two husbands for so long.”

  Farlo shrugged. “Well, these are uncertain times. Maybe she wanted to get her quota ... in case she lost one or two of them.”

  Candra laughed, nearly snorting up her drink. “Oh, you are always so funny, Farlo. You know that the seeress had her eye on you for a long time. Besides, the others are so old—it was time she had a young husband.”

  “I’m that, if nothing else,” said Farlo smugly.

  The regent sighed and lowered her eyes. “Well, I was under arrest for a few cycles, so I didn’t keep up with social doings. But they say you are very highborn ... ninety-six percent suzerainty.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve never had to work,” answered Farlo, trying to sound like his uncle Padrin. “Now I’ve got the post I was intended to have.”

  “And what are you going to do with that post?” asked Marla Karuw bluntly. “Do you aim to stay in the shadow of Seeress Jenoset? Or do you wish to be overseer?”

  “Whoa,” said Farlo honestly, thinking that this conversation had taken a strange twist. “We’ve got an ov
erseer, right? And we’ve got someone who is doing his job and has his powers—you. So why would you need me for that?”

  “We wouldn’t ... not now,” answered Karuw. “But as you say, you have youth on your side. The overseer, myself, and others in [129] charge are old. According to some very musty traditions, there are circumstances in which you could become the rightful heir. By the way, who are your parents?”

  Now I’m on slippery ground, thought Farlo, and he answered softly, “My parents aren’t important. They’re dead now.” No doubt that was the truth, he decided glumly.

  “I’m sorry,” answered Marla Karuw. “It’s ... it’s beyond belief what has happened to us. I just want you and Candra to know that you have a friend and ally in me. I’m high-bred myself, although it hasn’t always done me a lot of good. Seeress Jenoset is an important part of our government, and we want to maintain our traditions in this time of turmoil. I have to be very careful of this, since I’m regent with—”

  The communication device attached to her epaulet beeped, and she said, “Excuse me.” Karuw flipped a switch on the device and said testily, “Komplum, I left word not to be disturbed.”

  “Sorry, Your Regency,” he answered, “but Ambassador Worf is insisting that we must load the shuttlecraft now. One has been recalled to pick us up in the shuttlebay, and anyone who is going to the surface should report there now. I’ve already informed the overseer.”

  The regent scowled. “Why can’t we use transporters?”

  “Radiation ... protomatter ... microbes ... general caution,” answered Komplum. “I’ve got a detailed report from them, but the short answer is that the Klingons want to land in a shuttlecraft. They’ll have more firepower, if they need it.”