by S. D. Perry
Glessin held up a shining, slightly curved dagger. “I got this,” he said, handing it over. “But only as a keep-sake, I’m afraid.”
She examined the blade, and nodded. A decent knife, but no value beyond the intrinsic. “I appreciate the thought,” she said, and then put on a bright smile for the others. “As long as someone brought me something, I’m happy. And don’t forget, we got the Oracle. The Yaron are giving us three-fifty.”
Wan smiles and nods. It was a good take, but it wasn’t untold riches, either.
Jake was holding out something he’d fished from his boot. “Here, you can have this,” he said. “Sorry, it’s a little damp.”
Facity reached for it, Brad and Glessin leaning in, Dez sitting up a little straighter, Pif rising to sit. Even Coamis turned to look. It was small, a rounded, flat object with textured stripes…pretty, in a way, though it was damp, and awfully warm….
Glessin’s voice, when he spoke, was oddly flat, a little strangled.
“It’s one of the boxes,” he said.
Facity stared down at her open hand, her skin suddenly flushed, her mouth dry. “What?”
“One of his last,” Glessin said. “Giani’aga was going smaller right before he died. I read about them, but only saw a picture once…and that’s one of them. He made forty-seven boxes just over twice that size, his life’s work, that’s what we were looking for down there. Any one of those is worth nine hundred, easy, and that’s a low estimate.”
“And this one?” Facity asked, her voice almost a whisper. She felt her palm getting warm, saw the tiny box shiver, though that might have been her shaking hand.
Glessin shook his head. “There are only three. Priceless.”
For a long second, no one moved, no one seemed to breathe—and then they were all howling, shouting and laughing, Jake saying something about toy-stirs with a stunned expression as the team surrounded him, pounding his back, ruffling his hair. Dez looked on with something akin to love, and Facity carefully, gently handed the living box over to Glessin, terrified she would drop it when she went to give the young human the big, wet kiss that he so rightly deserved.
8
Day 16, late afternoon. I meant to write immediately after Drang, to record the experience so I wouldn’t forget anything, but I haven’t gotten around to it, it’s been a busy couple of days…well, sleeping and eating and having everyone congratulate me and thank me a thousand times over, which I totally don’t deserve. I keep telling them that it was a complete fluke, my finding the Giani’aga box (and a painful one, at that)—and it’s like they know that, but they’re just so pleased, they have to say something anyway. Feg has already started putting out feelers, to see what the market is, though Dez said it’ll probably be weeks before we find a buyer. I have to admit, I don’t exactly hate all the hoopla—not only do I now feel accepted by everyone in the crew, I’m suddenly very popular. We’re doing a salvage job day after tomorrow, which in this case just involves poking through an abandoned Dominion settlement, looking for assorted ship parts (it’s terrifying, how many “unofficial” outposts they had in the Idran system), and everyone keeps making jokes about wanting to partner with me.
I didn’t sit down to write about Drang today, either, and I’m realizing only now that I don’t have any desire to do so in the immediate future. Maybe because writing down a bunch of details to have for later, to look back over…it’s not being there. It will make a good story, I think, and maybe I’ll write it that way someday, for somebody else to read, but I don’t need to write it down for me, not here. I know what happened, I know that it was exciting and scary and intense, and while I can document those feelings, I can’t capture them…and I don’t particularly want to try. It’s like Dez was saying yesterday, about living those moments to live them. He said the experience itself is what counts—that, and having a good story to tell when you’ve been drinking (!).
I guess I’m writing right now because I’m feeling…dissatisfied, maybe, and maybe that’s dumb. The Even rendezvoused with the Yaron ship Glimnis today, to return the Oracle. It’s strange, I kind of expected the whole crew to turn out, to present the egg and the other stuff, but it was just Facity, Dez, Feg, and me. There wasn’t an announcement or anything, either, I only ended up going because I was on the bridge when the Glimnis hailed. Anyway, they seemed like nice people, the three men who came aboard, kind of tall and greenish, soft-spoken—and they were elated to get the Oracle back, positively overwhelmed. Two of them cried.
It’s just…I think I wrote before, about how the Yaron are a religious culture, how they believe that the millenniaold ashes of their supreme being are in the egg—or, rather, the remains of Her physical embodiment on Yaron—and that’s why they wanted it back so badly; it symbolizes their entire faith. I knew that much before Drang, and I thought it was kind of…well, heroic that the Even Odds would be helping them out. I can see now that I had this little story going in my head, about the desperate Yaron needing help, and us returning the Oracle in this big ceremony after having an exciting adventure…. The adventure part didn’t turn out the way I expected, but the rest was kind of fixed in my mind.
Except…Dez told me on the way to meet them that when the Drang stole the Oracle a few months ago, the Yaron were struck by a kind of planetwide insomnia. He said the entire society has been unable to function, a total shutdown—and that they’ll probably have to deal with a lot of aftermath from that, probably famine in some areas over the next year, and longer-term, drug-dependency issues arising from so many people having to be tranquilized for so long…and that there have been literally thousands of suicides. None of those details were in the little unconscious story I’d constructed…I guess because they weren’t fun details, if that makes any sense. And then when we gave it to them…
For how important the Oracle is, the money is nothing to them, right? They certainly thought so—they were happy to pay us, they wanted to pay us…so why do I keep thinking about Feg counting that money after they were gone, and feeling bad about it? The Yaron were looking for someone to hire, it wasn’t like they expected strangers to risk their lives for nothing….They sent ships to every port they knew of, with money, to find help—that’s how the Even heard about it, a call from a contact at one of those ports. And this is what the Even does , this is the retrieval business. The crew didn’t come together to perform acts of altruism, they hired on for excitement and money (at least most of them—Glessin I’m not sure about).
Maybe my uneasiness with all this is because I’m an “Alphie,” as Facity says, and a Starfleet brat besides. The GQ doesn’t have a Federation, there’s no Starfleet to come to the rescue when someone is being oppressed, or whatever. I grew up with such clearly defined beliefs about right and wrong, such a solid, black and white morality…but do I really think that the Even’s crew is immoral somehow, because they accept money for the work they’re doing? I think that would make me kind of condescending, actually. I mean, look at someone like Stessie, who doesn’t really care about the money at all—she left home because she wanted to travel, to have an adventure. Pif, too, he likes the money, but he’d probably do this for free….
Maybe I should stop trying to apply my own morals to this, maybe that’s the problem. Or…not even my own morals, but the morals I grew up with. Maybe I need to reexamine what I was taught. It’s sad that the Yaron were victimized by the Drang, but they asked us—the Even Odds , I mean—to do a job, to bring them the Oracle in exchange for three hundred and fifty Klon paegs (there’s no direct exchange, but that’s something like 80 or 90 bars of gold-pressed latinum, from what I can tell). We did, and they paid us, and maybe I should stop being so puritanical about it.
Okay, I feel better. I should probably go, I wanted to try and talk to Coamis again before hooking up with Dez for dinner. Over dinner last night, Dez and I were talking about Drang, and he kept saying how calm I was (?!), and I ended up telling him about what happened on Ajilon Prime. It’s weird,
it wasn’t as hard to talk about as I thought it would be…maybe because Dez isn’t Starfleet. When it happened, the only people I could really interact with about it were soldiers themselves. Anyway, I told him about running instead of fighting, and he told me about Coamis. I’ve kind of wondered why he hasn’t been around…. Dez asked me not to talk about it to anyone else, said that Coamis has already decided to leave the Even when we finally get to Ee. Dez and Fac offered to let him stay on as a researcher, I guess, but he turned them down. Anyway, I’m not going to go ask him about it, or just walk up and start talking about Ajilon…. I just thought it might help if he hadsome company. We’re still eight to twelve weeks from Ee without the big stops, and that’s a long time to feel like you’re all alone….
Gotta run.
About two weeks after Drang, something strange happened in the Wa…corresponding with something very strange that apparently happened everywhere else in the known universe. Facity, who’d always had a love for mysteries and stories of the bizarre, took a special interest in the event…and because she took the time to look up a few things, she ended up winning big.
She heard about the Wa from Prees, of course, who spent more time on the C-D subdeck than anyone else on the ship. It seemed that the engineer had gone down for one of her regular explorations, and discovered that all of the colors had turned a murky gray, the color to avoid. There was no telling how long it had been that way, exactly; it had been days since anyone had gone to visit, the crew busy between salvage sorting and bidding for the contract to find the Ahswidus cup. Facity had asked Prees to leave it alone for a while, and set about solving the minor mystery.
On a vague hunch that it might have something to do with the Even’s location, Facity had tuned in to subspace communications—and had ended up spending several hours listening, followed by another hour digging through the library. By the time lunch rolled around, she’d picked up enough information to offer up a truly interesting wager. Considering that the Even’s crew members had been known to bet on what one another had eaten for breakfast, Facity thought she might get some serious money involved on this one.
At lunch, she laid out the situation to an intrigued crew, from the Wa going gray to the reports she’d heard flying around subspace. All of her betting mates were present—the Ferengi, her fellow Wadi and Coamis, Pif, and Pri’ak. Dez, Jake, Neane, and Brad were also there, though of the four, only Dez gambled, and he already knew better than to bet with her. Or, rather, against her.
“So, these doors have opened up everywhere?” Pif asked.
Facity nodded. “Since yesterday. A whole network of interspatial gateways, and people and ships either are wandering into them by accident, or they’re being sucked in. Instant transport. It’s a mess out there.”
“Do you know if any of them open into the Alpha Quadrant?” Jake asked.
Facity hesitated. Jake’s voice was full of hope and optimism, and she hated to squash it. “None of the ones nearby,” she admitted. “The comms I picked up described a few Gamma places I’ve heard of, and the words ‘galaxy’s edge’ came up more than once. But no mention of the Alpha Quadrant. Sorry, Jake.”
Jake looked away, obviously disappointed.
“Why did the Wa turn gray?” Dez asked, frowning.
Facity shrugged. “Sympathetic vibrations, maybe. The Wa is a series of doors, opening up to places that aren’t necessarily entirely on board this ship.”
“Doors, I see,” Dez asked, smiling. “Scientific reasoning, huh?”
“To dust with you,” she said mildly. “You have no imagination.”
“It’s the Q,” Feg announced, and Triv nodded. “Has to be.”
Pif was also nodding, as were both art appraisers. Jake seemed surprised. “You know about Q?”
“They’re kind of hard to miss,” Pif answered. “I’m with Feg. It’s just the kind of thing they’d do to bother people.”
Neane was shaking her head. “I disagree. It’s not their style. Too…”
“Mechanical,” Facity said, and Neane nodded.
“Who do you think it is?” Jake asked, addressing their head researcher. Facity was also curious about what she would say. She already thought she knew who was responsible, but Neane would know more of the possibilities. The Hissidolan had probably forgotten more trivia about the universe and its peoples than Facity would ever learn.
“There are a number of species that come to mind,” Neane said thoughtfully, “who have the power to create such an event. Metrons, Organians, BiaMertis, Twelfthray, Q…the real question is, what’s the motivation? With the exception of Q, life-forms that advanced don’t generally have any interest in complicating the lives of lesser beings.”
Facity smiled to herself. Neane was overlooking the obvious. It’s not the power, it’s the technology.
“It could be an accident,” Pri’ak said. “It sounds like an accident, or maybe a side effect…”
Facity had noted that the engineering tech had a piece of food stuck to the back of his front teeth. While he was talking, she caught his gaze and picked at her own teeth with a fingernail. Nodding gratefully, Pri’ak trailed off and started working at the food bit with his tongue, creating a much bigger spectacle.
“‘With the exception of Q,’” Feg said. “Because it is Q.”
“Want to bet?” Facity asked.
“Why?” Coamis asked, sitting slightly apart from the others. “Who do you think it is?”
She was glad to have perked the half-Wadi’s interest—had been glad, in fact, to see him at lunch, talking with Jake. It was the first time in two weeks she’d seen him at all outside of mandatory meetings.
Doesn’t mean I won’t take his money….
“I think it’s the Iconians,” she answered, stating it strongly, wearing an expression of absolute certainty.
Neane nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, I—”
“Right, Iconians,” Feg sneered, cutting her off. “They’re an Alpha species. And haven’t they been dead for about a million years?”
Facity nodded slowly. “Yes…but they created a kind of gate system just like this, I read about it,” she said, fairly certain that Feg and Triv would already know about the “dead” gates. She was counting on it, to influence their decision. Iconian gateways weren’t uncommon, they just didn’t work.
Though it looks like they’re working now….
Of the twenty-plus reports she’d heard about sudden appearances and disappearances, she’d cross-referenced two of them to survey files that documented actual gate sites in the area. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for her to bet on.
Facity let a trickle of doubt enter her voice before reaffirming her belief. “And no one knows that they’re dead…it’s the Iconians.”
Played perfectly. Overly sure, but still ever so slightly doubtful. She only hoped that her intuition wasn’t playing her wrong. A couple of the subspace reports had mentioned the Iconian possibility, but no one had proof of anything.
“It might not be the Q, but I’d bet a half paeg that it’s not the Iconians, either,” Feg said.
“Me, too,” Triv said.
Facity smiled nervously. “I don’t know…honestly, I’d hate to take your money…”
Pif pounced. “I’m in for a half paeg.”
A second later, so was Coamis. Facity hesitated and blustered and hesitated again, and within a few minutes, she was up to six full paegs—four from the Ferengi, one each from Pif and Coamis. Having never heard of the Iconians, Fajgin and Itriuma wisely opted out, as did Pri’ak.
“So, we have a deal?” Feg pushed, showing as many teeth as possible.
Here’s the best part.
“I don’t know,” Facity said, shaking her head. “I’dfeel a lot better about this if you’d go look up the Iconians first, maybe listen to some of those reports. I’m pretty sure I’m right about this.”
Dez was smiling. “I’d listen to her, boys.”
Feg grinned impossibly w
ider at her. “You’re trying to back out?”
“I…no, it’s a deal,” Facity said, sighing, much to the delight of everyone involved. There was a Wadi saying, that there was no tool more powerful than the truth; still, it never failed to amaze her, how well it worked as a diversionary tactic.
From there, the conversation wandered toward other unusual occurrences, to tales of other mysterious civilizations and legends from home. They stayed in the dining hall until late into the afternoon, exchanging stories, speculating on the strange. Dez told a few of the famous retrieval myths to Jake—the lost planet of the Eav-oq, known only by the few rare crystals that had recorded their culture, that melted at a touch; the tombs of Luw, where the dead supposedly told accurate fortunes, for the price of a day inside a living body. He even dredged up the one about the alien race of females who wept gems and flowers. Pri’ak told the haunting Merdosian myth of the Five Kings, forever searching the night for their stolen crowns, occasionally willing to take unwary children instead. Neane told the legend of the Ascendants, among others, the mythical crusaders who had once destroyed entire planets for what they considered sacrilege, and even Feg and Triv got into the spirit of things, recounting the numerous myths involving the demon contracts.
Facity enjoyed herself immensely. It wasn’t an exciting day, but she knew that the impromptu experience would stay with her…specifically because it was unplanned and unimportant, but it was time spent really enjoying some of the people in her life. It was one of those rare days that just happened, that allowed her to feel the fortune of being alive, and to revel in a few shivers over the unknown.
Two days later, it was over, the gates closed, and the Wa returned to its normal state. Two days after that, the Even caught a report that some group claiming to be the Iconians were haggling to sell the gateway technology. Facity was actually disappointed that the whole thing hadn’t lasted longer, that the Even hadn’t gotten involved somehow…but the event had led to a full, wonderful afternoon of storytelling, and hours of interesting reading afterward, from downloaded subspace-communications reports…not to mention six Klon paegs. For a truly good day and six Klon paegs, she was willing to be a little disappointed.