Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  “Where’s Coris?” Harry gasped, obviously in pain.

  “She decided not to come,” lied Chakotay. “She was afraid.”

  Harry was baffled but Chakotay didn’t want to get into it now. “Beam me out of here, Harry. B’Elanna still has to come down.”

  Harry responded as though by reflex. Chakotay knew he was in a bad way, but didn’t yet know why, and for now it didn’t matter; what mattered was to get all of them outside the camp and into the forest.

  Seconds later, he was standing among the rest of the crew, deep within the forest which, at night, was cold and damp. Not long after, B’Elanna shimmered into view before them, and finally, Harry Kim, who collapsed as soon as he materialized.

  “What is it, Harry?” said Chakotay, who hurried to his side. Harry rolled over to look up at him with eyes that were black against his pale face.

  “Foot . . . crushed . . .”

  Chakotay looked down to see the boot on Harry’s right foot soaked in blood, the shape of the boot twisted unnaturally.

  “Can’t walk . . . leave me here . . .”

  “Forget it.” Chakotay nodded toward Tuvok and Tom, who hauled Harry up, ready to hoist him onto Tuvok’s back. The Vulcan’s strength would come in handy tonight.

  “Which way, Commander?” asked Tuvok, and then Chakotay remembered that he was expected to guide them in the right direction.

  But he felt nothing. No urge, no impulse, nothing that gave him any clue how to proceed from here. But they couldn’t just stand here; their absence would be discovered soon and the chase—if there was to be one—would be on.

  He turned to Seven. “It’s not working. I don’t feel what I did before.”

  She moved to him and stared solemnly at the implant on his cheek. She reached up and touched it gently. “This may cause you momentary pain,” she announced, and then she drove the heel of her palm directly into the nodule on his cheek.

  Chakotay felt as though his head had exploded. A jagged knife was ripping through his jaw, driving into his brain. The forest began to spin and he staggered, put his head down to get blood to it, then back up as the increase in pressure exacerbated the pain.

  Gradually, it abated, and he breathed deeply. The air was cold and sweet, and helped clear the residual pain.

  And as it did, he felt the unmistakable impulse to move from this place. There was something, an indefinable but potent something, pulling at him.

  “This way,” he said to the others, and began to plunge with unerring instinct through the forest.

  Coris felt herself lifted upward, and wondered if she was going to the afterlife, and if so, if Gammi would be there. She wasn’t afraid, just curious.

  Then the pain returned, and she heard the wild cry of the camp’s klaxons, and she realized she wasn’t dead after all. She opened her eyes and looked up into the dark face of Tassot Bnay, who was carrying her in his arms as easily as if she were a rag doll.

  “We will put salve on your wounds,” he announced. “There may be some scarring, but it will be minimal.”

  Coris absorbed this information dispassionately. Only one thing mattered to her. “Did the Voyagers get away?” she asked in a voice hoarse from screaming.

  “They are no longer in the camp. Whether they will succeed in their escape or not is uncertain. The Subu have apparently decided to pursue them.”

  Coris subsided into silence, finding comfort in the gentle jostling of Tassot Bnay’s gait. She felt secure in his arms, protected. She had given of herself to help the Voyagers, and now she in turn was being aided. There was a justness to the situation that pleased her, and at that moment she knew life could be led nobly, even under the most brutal and callous of conditions, and that from this time forward, that is how she would live.

  “Good luck, Harry,” she whispered to herself, and then gave herself over to the comfort of Bnay’s strong arms.

  Chakotay and his crew had been moving through the forest for only a few minutes when they heard the sound of the klaxons. It was an ominous, alien noise, which rent the stillness of the night in a primeval way, like the trumpet of some ancient, extinct behemoth.

  The sound was so startling that they all stopped for a moment, listening, but Chakotay exhorted them forward. “Move,” he hissed. “We have to keep going.”

  A few minutes later they saw the lights of hovercraft far overhead, obscured by the thick canopy of trees, and then the powerful beams of searchlights swept by. Chakotay knew that it would be difficult for the beams to penetrate the trees and unless they emerged into a clearing they should escape detection. But it was unnerving, nonetheless.

  On they plunged, Chakotay trusting the strange pull of the signal more completely now. Tuvok was still carrying Harry, who was nearly unconscious. He’d hung on until his job was done, in spite of the excruciating pain, and he couldn’t fight it any longer.

  “Are you doing all right?” Chakotay asked Tuvok.

  “I’m fine, Commander,” Tuvok replied, but Chakotay sensed the effort in his voice. Vulcans were strong, but he couldn’t be expected to carry a strapping young man indefinitely.

  And then they saw the lights of the vehicles.

  They were antigrav units, skimming through the woods with deftness and speed, powerful searchlights plying the darkness like giant fireflies. There would be no canopy protecting them from the beams of those lights.

  The vehicles were still in the distance, moving in seemingly random patterns through the woods. Did they have sensors? If so, they could surely detect fifteen people hurrying through the forest. But strangely, the vehicles weren’t headed directly for them, but were circling, hunting, clearly unaware of their location.

  They heard the next obstacle long before they saw it. At first it was barely perceptible, a soft rumble like the lowest notes of a bass viol. But as they moved foward the rumble became louder and more foreboding. A dampness pervaded the air and the temperature dropped still further, producing a clammy cold. What was ahead of them?

  Chakotay moved unerringly in the direction of the noise, knowing instinctively that it was their destination, but without knowledge of what, exactly, it was.

  Louder and louder was the sound, beyond a rumble now, a great growling as though thousands of cannons were detonating simultaneously and continuously. A mist was swirling in the air, wetting them, becoming thicker as they moved forward until finally they felt as though they were walking through a cold shower.

  Behind them, Chakotay noticed that the lights of the vehicles seemed to have stopped hunting randomly and were now focused in their general direction. Had they been spotted?

  In the next moment they walked out from under the protective canopy of the trees.

  The sound was thunderous now, the chill mist oppressive. And before them, they were able to see the source of the noise and the moisture.

  It was an unbelievably massive waterfall.

  Chakotay and his group stood on the edge of a precipice; from their left, stretching farther than they could see, a torrential river several thousand meters wide swept to the head of the falls, which wasn’t half a kilometer from them.

  Then it plunged over a steep drop, down, down an impossibly long way until it disappeared in billowing mists of vapor which churned with the force of the gigantic fall. They couldn’t see the bottom, or guess how far down it was.

  None of them had ever seen such an immense display of water power. The volume of water that cascaded over the cliff and plunged downward was incalculable, the force that it generated immeasurable. It was an awesome phenomenon of nature, which the scientists of the group would ordinarily have wanted to study.

  But tonight they viewed it with dismay.

  “Commander—what now?” asked Tom, trying not to sound worried.

  Chakotay didn’t answer, just stared at the Promethean falls, mind searching for the answer. He turned, and saw the lights of the vehicles drawing nearer; they had indeed been spotted.

  And suddenly hov
ercraft appeared overhead, lights sweeping the area in circles, within seconds of discovering them as well.

  Chakotay’s vision blurred and everything before him swirled into hallucinogenic images: waterfall, clouds of vapor, thick forests, arcing beams of light, the hushed, expectant faces of his crew, all blended into kaleidoscopic fragments. What was he to do? How could he get them out of this awful predicament? What had the captain intended—or was she behind this strange escape at all?

  He was seized with the memory of himself as a young person, running through the woods like a deer, heart pounding, feeling like an unencumbered animal dashing headlong, at one with nature. He tried to concentrate on that memory, to strip from himself all rationality, all logic, for something was telling him strongly that only his instincts could be relied on now, only his connection with the primeval being he carried deep inside. Father, he thought. Help me.

  And in his mind he heard his father’s voice, saying, Trust yourself. You know what to do.

  With that, the sensation of falling returned to him, even as it had the night the captain planted the Borg nodule in his cheek. But this time it held no terrors.

  He opened his eyes, certain of their course.

  The Subu vehicles were audible now, pushing through the forest, and the hovercraft were descending. There was no time to hesitate.

  “We’re going to jump,” he said firmly. “Join hands. Here we go.”

  To the credit of the crew, there was no objection, no reluctance. He supposed they realized if the Subu reached them they’d be dead anyway. And maybe this mad leap was at least the more defiant way to go.

  They joined hands, Harry still clinging to Tuvok’s back, and as one, leapt off the precipice and began to fall.

  Chakotay lived a lifetime during their fall.

  He nuzzled at his mother’s breast, fat and content, tugging at the nipple long past satiety, basking in comfort and succor . . . breezes blew his hair in his eyes as he stood on the hilltops near his home, carrying the desperate aroma of spring flowers . . . he felt the sweet urgency of first love searing his body, a black-haired girl ripe as a peach . . . gathering the artifacts for his medicine bundle . . . needles piercing the skin of his temple as the indigenous people of Central America etched the ritual tattoo into his forehead, his final tribute to his father . . . a woman’s voice, singing in the twilight . . . he felt love, pain, longing, aspiration . . . all the myriad emotions that had driven him since infancy swirled around him, coalescing into ribboned patterns of light, colorful serpents that twisted through, around, over him, objects now not of abhorrence but of reverence . . .

  Kathryn’s face, swimming in the mists . . .

  They had fallen endlessly, down and down, impossibly far, forever, and still they plummeted. Chakotay felt a curious peace settle over him, a willingness to fall like this until eternity, glorying in the rapturous plunge.

  And then a vision came to him.

  It was Voyager, rising from the mists of the gorge, ascending toward them like a roc.

  Chakotay realized he must be dead already, that this wondrous vision was nothing more than the last dying electrolytes of his brain, flickering with familiar images before they faded into the dark oblivion of death.

  And then he felt himself dematerializing.

  * * *

  “I was reasonably sure Seven would recognize the homing signal,” said Kathryn. “But I didn’t know if you’d understand that you had to jump.”

  “I don’t know that I did understand it. It was a sensation, an instinct. That’s all.”

  “The only place on that planet I felt I could conceal Voyager was in the mists of that waterfall. It was almost three kilometers long, and produced enough energy to disrupt their sensors.”

  They were in her quarters, relaxing over the best meal Chakotay had had in days, and had even splurged by replicating a bottle of wine. A powerful sense of well-being suffused him, abetted by the food, the drink, and the presence of Kathryn, who looked particularly lovely this evening.

  “How’s Harry’s foot?”

  “The doctor said it was badly mangled, and it might take a number of osteogenic treatments, but it should eventually be almost as good as new.”

  Chakotay nodded, and the image of Harry standing upright in the underground chamber, in agony but steadfastly carrying out his duty, came to him. He was silent, remembering the sacrifices every member of that group had made, their courage, their resourcefulness, their unflagging willingness to make that final plunge with him, the ultimate leap of faith.

  He felt a soft hand on his and realized Kathryn had taken hold of him and was looking into his eyes with concern. “What is it?” she asked softly.

  He hesitated. How could he tell her? How could he communicate what had happened to them in the course of that extraordinary adventure, describe the immensity of feeling that had come of their imprisonment and escape?

  Maybe he couldn’t. He felt incapable of re-creating the closeness, the intimacy they had all shared. Maybe it was an experience that would have to remain private, to be remembered and abreacted only among those who had lived it.

  “I was thinking,” he said carefully, “about that blue robe you had on when you visited the camp. Where’d it come from?”

  “From people called the Murr. They’re wealthy traders who do business with the Subu.”

  “I’d give a month of replicator rations to see you in it again.”

  Her mouth turned in a slight smile. “I think that could be arranged,” she said.

  They sat like that for a while, easily silent, hands joined, looking out at the sweep of the warp stars.

  In a few moments he realized that of course he must tell her everything, must communicate every moment, every nuance of the experience, must make her feel as though she had been there, too. Because if she weren’t a part of it, he would be somehow incomplete.

  The touch of her hand was warm. He could feel the beat of her pulse in her wrist, and it seemed to him that his heart must be beating in rhythm with hers. The stars streaked by, breathtaking ribbons of white, defiant, transcendent, an ecstasy of light, and he gazed at them, mind quieted by their hypnotic power.

  Presently, he began to speak.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15