by L. A. Graf
She nodded, but didn't unknit her frown. "You said they wouldn't try to hurt you."
"Most likely," he amended. "But I'm not taking any chances." He was already running through a mental tally of what they had on board, and what he wanted to do with it all. He tossed a wry smile at Sulu on his way out of the cockpit. "I may not remember what Elasian women looked like, but I certainly remember Elasian men."
Uhura took a deep breath as she stepped out of the shuttle, trying to summon a Dohlman-imperious look for the squad of Elasian males waiting for them. The thin, cold air of Rakatan bit at her throat, dry with dust and sharp with ozone from the defense shield shimmering over the camp. She heard Ensign Murphy cough behind her.
"Dohlman Uhura." The familiar red-haired figure of the Dohlman's chief underling stepped away from the rest of the pack and gave her an almost imperceptible nod. "Her Glory, the Dohlman Israi, is no longer sure she wishes to speak to you. She has been insulted by your delay in arriving."
"Our delay?" Uhura allowed some of her annoyance with the Elasians to surface at last. "There wouldn't have been a delay, Chief Underling Takcas, if you had been willing to negotiate a reasonable landing agreement with us when we first arrived. You have not served your Dohlman well."
As a reprimand, it had been a shot in the dark, but it made the Elasian's young face darken with anger. His wordless growl brought both Sulu and Ensign Murphy a protective step closer, but Uhura refused to let herself be intimidated. She reached out and slapped a small hand against Takcas's broad chest, trying to mimic the fearlessly scornful manner she remembered from Dohlman Elaan of Troyius.
"Out of my way," she ordered. "I wish to see the Dohlman Israi at once."
The lash of her voice had the desired effect. Takcas scowled but backed away from her with instinctive obedience. He snapped his fingers, and a bearded older male stepped out from the rest of the guards.
"Oben, bring them to the doors of Her Glory's compound." Takcas's voice was sharp, as if he could take out on his subordinate the resentment he didn't dare show to Uhura. "Her Glory can decide then if she will allow them in."
"Yes, Kessh." Oben's pale green eyes swept over Uhura and her three companions, with an emotion that could have been either suspicion or scorn. "Follow," he said shortly, and turned away without looking to see if Uhura was behind him.
Stifling a sigh of relief at the success of her first confrontation, Uhura followed the older male toward the small, arched portal that pierced the shimmering defense shield. Sulu kept pace beside her, with Murphy alert and watchful an arm's length away. The geologist lagged several steps behind, casting a worried look back at the shuttle that contained his seismic equipment. The thud of booted feet told Uhura that Takcas and the remaining Elasians had boarded it for inspection.
"Lieutenant Chekov won't let them damage any of our equipment, will he?" Mutchler's hushed voice was anxious.
Sulu shook his head. "Not unless they damage him first." He quirked an eyebrow at Uhura while Oben exchanged salutes with the guards at the portal. "I don't remember the Elasians being this obnoxious the last time we met them."
"That's because their Dohlman didn't destroy your quarters," Uhura retorted. "I remember them being exactly this obnoxious."
Sulu grinned in rueful acknowledgment, but said nothing as the burly Elasian led them through the portal and into the mining compound.
Contrary to Uhura's expectations, it was not a luxurious settlement. A brief straggle of metal buildings crammed into the angle formed by a ridge of dark gray rock and the dusty gravel of a dry streambed, leaving just enough room for a furrowed track of road and scattered piles of rock. Away from the shuttle and the defense shield, Uhura noticed the bleak silence of Rakatan for the first time. There was no vegetation on this planet to rustle in the breeze, no small animals to chirp or whistle or hum. All she could hear, very far away and indistinct, was the rhythmic drumming of machinery.
Oben turned onto the equipment track, and they followed him up the dry streambed. From the upper part of the gully, Uhura could see barren mountain slopes converging into a distant, snowcapped peak. She glanced over her shoulder at Scott Mutchler. "Is that the top of Rakatan Mons?"
The geologist smiled and shook his head. "Just one of the parasitic volcanoes on the upper slope. The main crater's hidden behind those clouds." He pointed at the enormous stack of cumulus clouds towering far above the visible peak, almost halfway across the steel blue bowl of sky. Uhura blinked in astonishment. "You hardly ever see Rakatan Mons from the ground. It's so big, it makes its own weather."
Oben paused outside a metal building as raw and spartan as all the rest. "Wait here, until Her Glory decides whether she will see you." He disappeared inside the plasfoam door without pausing for their acknowledgment.
"Judging from his voice, this could be another long wait." Sulu eyed the big gray boulders outside the door, then settled cross-legged on the least jagged one. Uhura perched beside him, knowing that would make Ensign Murphy's job easier. The dark-skinned security guard prowled an invisible perimeter around the two of them, making it just wide enough to include Mutchler, as well. The geologist crouched beside another boulder, peering at it with a small glass hand lens.
"What are you looking at, Dr. Mutchler?" Uhura ran her fingers over the pale pink tracery of some primitive plant embroidered on the rock's sun-baked surface. "The lichen?"
"It's a slime mold," he said absently. "And I've seen it before." He dropped the hand lens into his pocket and swung around, slouching back against the rock with a frustrated sigh. "Dammit, I wish I could figure out exactly what it is they're mining here."
Uhura exchanged considering glances with Sulu. Because she was the commanding officer of the landing party, the decision to share classified information with non-Starfleet personnel was hers to make. She made it. "The Elasians say they're mining dilithium."
"Dilithium!" Mutchler jerked his head up to stare at her with wide gray eyes. After a moment, his astonishment melted into utter indignation. "No way!"
Uhura blinked at the old-fashioned phrase. "Excuse me?"
Mutchler slapped the rock beside him. "There is no way the Elasians or anybody else could be mining dilithium out of these rocks." He saw her doubtful look and bent down, scrabbling a broken shard from the smaller rocks at his feet and tossing it at Sulu. "Here, look at this. What do you see?"
The helmsman caught the rock fragment and held it up to the sunlight so it glittered. Close up, Uhura could see that it wasn't truly gray, but a fine-grained mesh of white and black. "Um—some little white crystals?"
Mutchler nodded approval. "Phenocrysts of plagioclase feldspar. What else?"
Sulu's dark eyes crinkled with amusement. "Some little dark crystals."
"Right. That's amphibole. Now do you see anything in there that looks clear, like quartz?" Both of them shook their heads, puzzled. "That's because there isn't any quartz, not in this kind of rock."
"So?" Sulu asked.
The geologist gave him a surprised look. "No quartz, no dilithium," he said simply. "I thought everybody knew that. One of the reasons we didn't discover dilithium until the twenty-second century was that it's crystallographically identical to quartz." He went on, obviously warming to his subject. "Not only does it have exactly the same lattice and spacing, dilithium forms in the exactly the same kinds of rocks as quartz. Pegmatite veins, mostly, in association with the true lithium minerals such as spodumene and—"
"Dr. Mutchler." Long experience with Spock had taught Uhura to recognize extraneous information when she heard it. "Are you saying that there are no rocks anywhere around here that could contain dilithium?"
The geologist hesitated, frowning. "I wouldn't go that far, I guess. After all, this is a supernova-remnant star system, just like Earth's, so there should be some dilithium in the crust. And Rakatan Mons is the closest thing this planet has to continental crust. If there are dilithium-bearing pegmatite veins anywhere—which I doubt—they're pro
bably underneath it. But even if they were, they'd be buried way too deep to mine. At least five kilometers down, if not more." He sat up, his young face brightening with excitement. "Unless one got carried to the surface as a xenolith!"
"What's a xenolith?" Uhura demanded, surprised by his sudden flare of enthusiasm.
"A foreign rock that gets taken hostage by a volcanic eruption." Mutchler saw the dubious look Sulu slanted him and waved his arms in the air. "No, really, it can happen! The magma that erupts from Rakatan's volcanoes comes from deep in the mantle. All it has to do is break off a chunk of pegmatite from some underground vein it passes on its way up, then carry it up to the surface without melting it. When the magma hardens, you get a blob of dilithium-bearing pegmatite frozen inside."
Sulu cocked his head. "So you really think that the Elasians could be mining dilithium here?"
"No," Mutchler said flatly. "The odds are a thousand to one against there being dilithium pegmatites under Rakatan Mons to begin with. The odds against one of them getting picked up as a xenolith are probably astronomical." A quick grin split his scruff of beard. "But then, so are the odds against there being a volcano as big as Rakatan Mons in this kind of tectonic setting. If there's one thing I've learned about geology on this planet, it's not to play by the odds." He scrambled to his feet and looked around the mining camp. "Now, if I were a dilithium pegmatite ore, what building would I be hiding in?"
Ensign Murphy spun around from the far end of the circle he was pacing. "Sir, I'd rather you didn't—"
It was too late. Mutchler's long strides had taken him out into the road and down toward the last and largest of the metal buildings before the security guard's belated rush could catch him. Ducking around a corner, the geologist disappeared from view.
"Sir?" Quivering like a dog on a leash, Murphy looked over his shoulder at Uhura. "Should I go and bring him back?"
She glanced at the silent door of the Dohlman's residence, and nodded. "Hurry, before anyone else—"
A distant growl and thump interrupted her. Uhura gasped and sprang to her feet, hearing Mutchler's voice break off in midyelp. "Go!" she ordered Murphy, but the security guard was already in motion.
She sprang to her feet and bolted after him with Sulu at her heels. They rounded the corner of the large warehouse together, then nearly slammed into Murphy from behind. The security guard had come to an abrupt stop. Half-hidden as she was behind his broad shoulder, it took Uhura a moment to see why.
Scott Mutchler lay sprawled and groaning outside a doorway guarded by two grim Elasian males. Both of them were large, bare-armed and prodigiously muscled, but it wasn't their size or their scowls that had stopped Ensign Murphy in his tracks.
It was the Klingon disruptors they had leveled at the Enterprise crewman.
Chapter Six
"YOU ARE CHIEF UNDERLING of this cohort?" The big Elasian male paused just inside the shuttle's hatch, scowling with rank disapproval as he looked Chekov up and down. Chekov had a feeling he was going to thoroughly loathe the word underling by the time this mission was over. "Your Dohlman thinks to make fun of us." The accusation in his voice was bitter.
Chekov crossed his arms and returned the Elasian's flinty stare with a thin smile. "You must be Takcas." In fact, he remembered the red-haired Elasian from the viewscreen on the Enterprise's bridge, when both Takcas and his Dohlman had spoken to Kirk in the most shamefully disrespectful manner. No doubt his comments now were as civilized as Chekov should have expected. "Welcome aboard the shuttle Gamow. I am—"
"I have no care for who you are." Takcas ducked the rest of the way inside, his head brushing the ceiling when he straightened to stand upright. He raked his gaze across the shuttle's stark interior, and his aquiline nose wrinkled as though smelling something sharp and unpleasant.
Chekov was suddenly glad he'd opted to wait for Takcas in here, instead of extending the Terran courtesy of greeting the Elasian outside. Not only was it familiar ground, but the human-proportioned shuttle also granted Chekov a distinct advantage in mobility and comfort when it came to dealing with these seven-foot-tall behemoths. And he had to admit that he wasn't sorry the rest of Takcas's cohort didn't have room to follow their leader inside.
"Chief Underling Takcas—"
"No!" The Elasian swung about with a fierce scowl, his voice as sharp and hard as though he were disciplining a dog. "You will not call me that execrable word, little underling. I tolerate such foul language from your Dohlman only because my Dohlman tells me to. You will call me 'Kessh,' and you will treat me accordingly."
Chekov had almost forgotten the Universal Translator on his belt until the alien word pricked it into action. It responded to the guttural bark—kessh—with the apologetic chime that meant it had no direct translation for the concept. Three words were offered in an attempt at explanation: sergeant, guardian, alpha male. Chekov had to admit that any of those was better than underling, no matter what language you spoke it in.
"Is there anything in particular you would like to examine, Kessh Takcas?" he asked. The sooner they completed this inspection, the sooner Chekov could rejoin the rest of the landing party. "Your Dohlman expressed concern over our weapons system."
Angular face still drawn into a frown, Takcas paced negligently forward, apparently oblivious of Chekov blocking his path. "This pitiful transport shuttle doesn't have a weapons system." He stopped just short of colliding with the lieutenant, and leaned to peer at the pile of seismic equipment near the rear of the shuttle. "But it has other equally distasteful things. You will move those boxes outside."
"No, I won't." Chekov craned his neck to meet the gaze a half-meter above him, but refused to take the step backward that would have made their conversational distance more comfortable. He had agreed to call this man by whatever title his culture preferred—he hadn't agreed to back down from him. "My Dohlman left very specific instructions regarding those crates." Actually, it had been Mutchler, fretting aloud the whole time he stacked them in the corner as Chekov had ordered. "They contain delicate scientific equipment—"
"I know what they contain." Takcas cut him off with a snort and a dismissive wave. "I have destroyed two such shipments of equipment already."
So Mutchler had remarked. "Then you don't need to see this shipment, do you?"
The Elasian surprised him by turning sideways to try and elbow his way past, and Chekov had to step sternly to his right to impose himself between the kessh and his target. They collided briefly—hard enough for Takcas to make clear he wanted access, and long enough for Chekov to shove back at him and make clear he wasn't moving. "I told you, Kessh Takcas, my Dohlman doesn't want anyone to touch this equipment."
"Your Dohlman." The Elasian slapped backhanded at the lieutenant's shoulder, a disgustingly patronizing gesture. "I already know that your Dohlman would not even be here if those hairless geologists hadn't gone crying to the government. You take orders from them, not from her."
"If my Dohlman's orders are to safeguard equipment owned by the geologists, then that's what I'll do." He lost a single step against Takcas's pushing, but planted a foot against the seats behind him to keep from going farther. "I don't question her orders—ever. I obey them." He threw his whole weight into the shove, and stumbled Takcas back a step and a half.
"You obey a Dohlman who values the wants of geologists?" the Elasian sneered. But he didn't come closer again. "They only covet this planet because we have found dilithium here."
"The geologists were on Rakatan first—"
"Then they should have protected their claim! Stationed guard ships, formed an armada!" Takcas's hands came down to his sides, and one fist curled possessively around the dagger at his belt. "They are thieving maggots not fit to steal Elasian refuse, and your Dohlman is no better for having been with them." He stabbed a finger at the waiting boxes. "Move those useless machines outside, or I will move them for you!"
Chekov placed a hand on the seat backs to either side of him and clenched t
he fabric to try and hide his tension. "I'll stop you."
"Will you?" The question was almost a laugh. Takcas spread his arms as if to draw attention to the difference in their sizes. All Chekov focused on was the long, narrow dagger he'd freed with the motion. "How?"
No matter how belligerent the opposition, Chekov knew Kirk would hold him responsible for any insult he paid an alien dignitary—or her staff. That no doubt included foul language, and it certainly included stabbing. So, gritting his teeth against the rush of impolite things his heart wanted to say, he locked eyes with Takcas and repeated only, "I'll stop you," as though the outcome were never in question.
The Elasian's eyes narrowed; then his face melted into a faint smile that made him look younger than Chekov had originally thought. "You talk bigger than you stand."
Unsure how to respond, Chekov kept silent as Takcas slipped his knife back into its sheath and turned to bellow something in Elasian to the group outside the door. Their laughter rolled into the shuttle like a tumble of rough-hewn stones. A single voice broke free of the babble to rattle off a lengthy chain of language. Takcas nodded casually in response before turning back to Chekov. "What is your name, little kessh?"
He didn't hide his disgust for Takcas's labeling. "Chekov."
"Chekov." It sounded different, somehow, in the blunted Elasian accent, but seemed to please the alien male all the same. "That's a good name." He smiled hugely, crossing his arms. "You know, Chekov, on my world a male no larger than you would have been killed in adolescence."
It occurred to Chekov then that whatever this was about, it had nothing to do with the shuttle, or security, or anything else he could understand. "As far as human males go," he said noncommittally, "I'm not so small."
"I've seen human males." Takcas cocked his head in cool amusement. "You're not so large, either." He waved toward the open hatchway without giving Chekov a chance to reply. "Now come. My men say we must hurry back to the compound. There's been a problem between our peoples, and if we aren't quick, we'll miss all the fighting before my Dohlman has your Dohlman's precious geologist put to death."