Dusts of Creation (Confederation Reborn Book 7)

by Bernard Schaffer

  The disk in front of the machine burst into a brilliant cone of white light, shooting up toward the ceiling of the cavern with crackling energy. Even as the Captain moved to toss the glass ball aside, his whole body was wrenched backward toward the cone of light, sucked in by some unseen force, too quickly for him to react. The instant his body touched the light, he vanished.

  Doctor Kelley stood gaping in horror as the light clicked off, and the glass ball dropped to the cavern floor.

  "A teleporter!" Saris said, running to the doctor's side.

  "No."

  "What do you mean, no?" Saris said. "Do you disagree?"

  "I mean no. I mean hell no. There is no way in hell I am letting this handmade jerry-rigged secondhand contraption suck me into its vortex of death just so it can spit me out any damned place it feels like it."

  As the doctor continued to issue his refusal, Saris walked around the disk and peered down at the screen. It was the same symbol that had been on the screen when the Captain vanished. Saris picked up the glass ball that had fallen from Kirn's hand, feeling it grow warmer until it began to glow with soft purple light. He looked over his shoulder to see Doctor Kelley, waving his arms back and forth as he said, "It's bad enough using the one on the Endeavor, but at least I know it was built by professional people. This thing looks like my great-granddaddy's moonshine still. No way. Forget it."

  The disk burst into light from the floor, and Kelley's eyes widened, uttering a small squeak as Saris grabbed him by the tunic and yanked him forward into the portal.

  Captain Kirn rematerialized standing on the same disk. As the light faded beneath his feet, he looked up at his new surroundings, and his eyes widened. He was outside, on the surface of Sirvat once more, standing in a green meadow surrounded by tall trees and lush foliage, but he was no longer alone. Nearly one hundred people were staring at him in awe. Some of them trembled, so awestruck that they rocked back and forth with their arms clenched around themselves, sputtering in tears. Kirn looked past the crowd, seeing that the disk was placed in the middle of an elaborate altar, with hanging bowls filled with burning incense.

  "Who are you people?" Kirn demanded as he stepped down from the disk. "Where are my men?"

  An older man stepped forward, his eyes red and swollen, staring at Kirn. "It's true," he whispered. "Everything that was prophesied." He was dressed in a light blue robe that was tied around one shoulder, the same simple clothing all of the others wore. His only accoutrement was a silver rune dangling from a necklace, one of the same ones that Kirn had seen flash on the screen before he teleported.

  A woman came forward, wrapping her hand around the man's arm. She looked up at him and said, "Now, do you believe? Now, do you forgive?"

  He looked at Kirn for a moment longer, then turned toward the woods and cried out, "Vahan!" He called the name again and again, shouting until his voice broke, stopping only when a young man emerged from the trees and said, "Yes, father?"

  The youth looked at Kirn and his eyes widened, but the older man was already extending his hands toward him, closing the distance between them on unsteady legs. He stopped abruptly and reached up for the rune and grasped it in his hand, yanking it so hard that the necklace snapped. He turned and threw the rune into the woods with a cry of anger, then looked at the boy and said, "Forgive."

  Vahan wrapped his arms around the older man and said, "It was never in my heart to hate you, father." He looked past his father at where Kirn stood and his mouth opened, but no sound came forth. Both he and his father slowly lowered themselves to the ground, still embracing, and bowed their heads toward the altar.

  Kirn watched in confusion as more and more people in the crowd began doing the same. Some stared at him in open defiance, their fists clenched at their sides, but they did not speak or move, but everywhere they stood, people on either side of the defiant ones bowed and stretched their arms out, in worship.

  3.

  The terrain was vast, empty hard pack. In the distance, Dr. Kelley saw nothing but an endless vista of orange and yellow sand. He turned to see Saris also staring into the horizon, his face lined with concern.

  "What is it Commander?" he asked, following his gaze. It was almost impossible to see what Saris was looking at – but then he saw the shifting wall of haze. "Damn, that's moving up fast."

  "Doctor, we must find shelter. Immediately."

  "Should we move so far away from where we appeared? How do we get back to the cavern?"

  "I do not know," Saris said, starting to walk faster. "It would be most beneficial if you helped me search for shelter."

  "What's the matter, Saris?" Kelley chided him. "Scared of a little sand in your eye?"

  "It's apparent to me that you've never found yourself in a true sand storm, Doctor," Saris said. "On Valkar they are a regular occurrence. Believe me when I tell you, it is not advisable to be caught in one."

  The Valkar was running then, and it was all Kelley could do to keep up with him. They raced across the clay toward the nearest cliffs, already able to feel particles of sand and rock zipping past the backs of their necks. The further they ran, the farther the cliffs seemed away, a trick being played on their eyes by the shifting sands.

  The wind was picking up, the first carrion calls of the building storm. "Where are all the trees?" Kelley shouted. "The rivers and streams? How did they all just dry up?"

  Saris bent low and raised his hand over his head to block his face. "We have no idea where we are, or when, Doctor. We may not even be on Sirvat any longer."

  Kelley muttered something about teleporters again. "What if we can't find shelter?"

  "The storm will overtake us."

  "And what then?" Kelley said.

  Saris looked at him. "I do not believe your tolerance for pain is the same as mine, Doctor. Keep moving."

  Dr. Kelley looked back at the rapidly approaching storm. It had grown in volume, assuming the shape of a billowing vortex of sand. The sound was like that of a great, snarling beast. The wind beat his tunic against his chest, and Kelley could feel grains of debris stinging his exposed flesh as they whipped past. He realized what the sand would do to his skin once the storm was upon them. There would not be enough meat left on him for the buzzards. He turned to run, only to see Saris drop down to one knee and dial something into his portable scanner.

  "Come on, you fool!" Kelley shouted. "Now's not the time to take any scientific readings!"

  "One moment, Doctor," Saris called out, raising his voice above the storm.

  Kelley yanked on his arm. The Valkar's muscles were like coiled springs. "I won't leave you behind!"

  Saris turned another dial on the scanner and waited, watching the line on the screen go flat. He leapt to his feet and said, "This way! As fast as you can!"

  The ground was shaking beneath them, the packed dirt coming loose, as if the surface itself was being summoned toward the storm. Kelley ran blindly, trying his best to go straight, hoping that Saris was doing the same. He could no longer see for the winds stinging his eyes and when he opened his mouth to speak, the winds carried his voice far off and away.

  "Here!" Saris' faint voice called out. "Get inside!"

  Kelley stumbled forward blindly, staggering into the bent over Valkar. Saris guided the Doctor down inside a narrow metal hatch, its lid buried in the surface of the flats. Kelley did his best to grab the top rung and get himself inside, his head buzzing from the rattling winds. "Quickly," Saris urged him.

  The air was a mighty roar above him, and Kelley's heart hammered in his chest as he descended. He went as quickly as he could, trying to get far enough down that Saris could get the lid closed over top of them both. The sand was beating Saris then, starting to leave tiny purple welts on his face, but all the Valkar did was say, "Excellent, Doctor. Keep going, and watch yourself."

  Saris managed to get one leg down into the hatch and bent low, using the lid to shield himself as best as he could. The light was blotted out by the storm and closing
lid, and Kelley could no longer see where he was supposed to grab and step. He was going lower though, and he looked up to see Saris, finally able to duck down enough to drop the lid on top of them both.

  Kelley let out a laugh of relief as they were swallowed by darkness, saying, "We made it!" just as his foot missed the next rung. The bottom of his boot gouged nothing but air, and it sent him careening to one side.

  "Doctor!" Saris shouted, whipping around to try and grab the doctor's wrist. The tips of his fingers brushed Kelley's wrist just as the doctor's fingers slipped free of the rung, and he dropped away from the ladder and fell.

  Saris watched in mute horror as Kelley vanished out of his view, and closed his eyes when he heard the echo of a body hitting the cavern floor.

  Kirn stepped down from the altar, moving cautiously toward the worshippers. They did not cease their prayers, even when he bent down to the nearest man and said, "That's enough. Someone needs to explain to me what is going on."

  He grabbed Kirn's hand around the wrist and kissed it, his eyes flooded with tears. "I always believed," he said. "Always. Even when my wife cast me out of our home, I never stopped having faith."

  "Faith in what?" Kirn demanded, pulling his arm away.

  A woman emerged from the woods, surrounded by a group of men armed with primitive-looking weapons made from wood and sharpened stones. All of them were dressed in plain utilitarian jumpsuits, made of drab colors. Kirn noted that all of the guards wore the same necklace and rune that he'd seen the old man cast away, as did the woman.

  She put her hands on her hips, looking over the scene, and said, "Faith in you, of course."

  The people in the crowd inched back at the woman's arrival, some of them whispering the name, "Minister Aig."

  Kirn looked up at this stern-faced woman and said, "Who are you and what are you talking about?"

  "Are you not the one called Kirn?"

  He nodded slowly and said, "I am. How do you know that?"

  "It was foretold. Some chose to believe it," she said, nodding toward the worshippers. "Others did not."

  "Enough riddles," Kirn said, heading toward the woman. She was nearly as tall as he, and her hair was pulled back in a severe, tight manner. The other women surrounding the altar wore garlands of flowers, tiny tokens of beauty gathered from the fields and trees all around them, but not this one.

  The guards beside Minister Aig lowered their weapons as Kirn approached, and his hand instinctively moved toward the pistol on his hip. He could easily have blasted every one of them before they could touch him with their rocks and sticks, but instead, he stopped and said, "How did you know I would arrive at this place?"

  "Your arrival was prophesied when this world was little more than dust. It is said your arrival would signal the end of our people, but in some ways, a new beginning as well."

  "Who? Who foretold my arrival?"

  She stared at him scornfully, amused that he did not know the answer. She looked at the ones in the crowd who were bowing and cried out, "Infidels! You bow and pray to this false prophet, and scorn the way of mak'rut! Each of your names are written down in the great book. Each of your names will be stricken from admittance to paradise!"

  "Save us!" a woman sobbed, running forward from the crowd and collapsing at his feet. She wrapped her arms around his ankles and pressed her face against the top of his boots, begging him for salvation.

  "Stop that," Kirn said, trying to pull the woman off.

  "Be gone!" Minister Aig shouted, kicking dirt in the woman's face. "Can you not see this is a test of your faith?" She threw her hands in the air and shouted, "All who would remain pure, I command you to leave this place! Leave your wives if they are sinners, leave your sons if they are impure, lest they drag you down with them!"

  Those in the crowd still standing turned to leave, wading through the throng while their loved ones clutched at them, begging them to stay. The young man called Vahan raised his finger toward Minister Aig and cried out, "You must take him to the temple. That is your duty."

  "Do not lecture me about my duty, sinner!" Aig snarled.

  "The boy speaks true," Vahan's father said. Fear filled his eyes as he spoke to the minister, but still he continued, "Every year we've gathered on this day, for as long as the histories have kept record of it, waiting to see if the prophecy would come true. Now it has, Minister. And you must do as it is written."

  Others in the crowd began to shout in agreement, and Aig glared at them fiercely. Her head turned slowly to face Kirn, and she said, "Come. I will fulfil my duty and take you to the temple."

  The guards moved aside to let them pass, and Kirn had to hurry to follow the woman into the woods. He noticed the guards forming up behind them, holding their weapons close. "We will talk in private now, Kirn. None of the others will dare disturb us."

  "Tell me what the hell is going on," Kirn insisted.

  She ducked under a large branch as she led him down the trail, going deeper into the woods. "The scrolls telling of your arrival are so old, our best researchers can no longer read them. It is something we have attempted to understand for almost as long as we have inhabited Sirvat."

  Kirn turned and looked at the sky, using the sun to locate the correct position for Tgegh and its moon. In the daytime, he could not make out either of them. "Tell me, do you have instruments to observe the stars, here?"

  "No," she said. "We have always focused on more immediate concerns."

  "Such as?" Kirn said.

  "Maintaining the purity of our race."

  Kirn laughed and said, "I've got news for you. At some point in the future, there is going to be an event that will make you reconsider your priorities. I promise you that."

  "How arrogant," the minister muttered.

  "Pardon?"

  "How typical and arrogant. You know nothing of our ways. What did you come to prove, Kirn? That some cosmic event will one day destroy our people unless we unite? We have united. Under the banner of the mak'rut," she said, gripping the medallion around her neck. "Your arrival serves no purpose here, other than to destroy that which we have built."

  "It's not me who will destroy it," Kirn tried explaining. "My people have the technology to measure the gravitational pull of planets. At some point, the moon orbiting Tgegh will veer off course and cause a collision that will destroy your planet."

  "Can you prove this?"

  "What are your technological computational capabilities?"

  She raised her necklace and held it between them, saying, "The mak'rut allows us to measure the purity of each member of our race. That is all the technology we require. It has carried us through the centuries. How convenient that to prove your claims, you require things that simply do not exist."

  Kirn's jaw twitched slightly as he struggled to maintain his composure. "Then how do you explain me standing here?" he said. "I arrived, exactly when your prophecy said I would."

  "As I said, you are a trick played on us, meant only to test our faith in the mak'rut."

  Kirn shook his head and sighed. "The sad thing is, you realize, the only way to prove myself to you is to let you be destroyed."

  Minister Aig laughed and said, "Have no fear, Kirn. We will be just fine. The mak'rut's covenant with our people is for all eternity."

  4.

  The human wasn't moving.

  Saris dropped to his knees next to the Doctor and looked him over, gently running his fingers down the length of Kelley's spine and checking for any protruding bones. "Doctor, can you hear me?"

  He felt for a pulse with the tips of his fingers. Weak, but still present. If Kelley had suffered a spinal injury, any movement could lead to permanent paralysis. Saris let out a slow breath, trying to steady himself as he worked the medical equipment out from under him, moving the man as little as he could.

  He snapped the medical scanner on and aimed it at Kelley's body. The screen flickered as Saris swept through various thermographic outlines showing the doctor's bones, muscle
s, and vital organs. He stopped at the one revealing Kelley's skeletal structure, each bone glowing bright green. Saris calibrated the instrument to search for anomalies, and it beeped in response, zeroing in on multiple crushed vertebrae along the doctor's lower spine.

  Saris scrolled upwards and aimed the scanner at Kelley's heart and brain. There was a dark brown spot on the back of Kelley's brain, and he was not moving. However, Saris noted, his lungs were still operating, and the injuries to his back were not indicative of paralysis. He shut the scanner off and muttered, "Such fragile creatures."

  As he lowered himself to the doctor's field gear, he heard someone breathing from the shadows, watching him. To the Valkar, even from that distance, it was as if the person were heaving directly in his ear. He pretended not to notice as he selected the first of several injections he would need to stabilize Kelley. If the person intended on harming either of them and believed Saris was a normal human, he would be in for a most unpleasant realization.

  There was not nearly sufficient equipment to treat the doctor's injuries. Perhaps, if he could be returned to Sickbay in the near future, he would recover reasonably well. But in the dark, down a hole, lost in an unknown time period with no way of contacting the Endeavor, his odds of survival were lessening by the moment. And the odds of what quality of life he'd have if he did survive were falling even faster.

  Feet scuffed against the cavern floor and Saris looked up, seeing a human walking toward him slowly, deliberately. He was dressed in a plain yellow jumpsuit, but it had been torn and dirtied by what, Saris assumed, were days of wandering through the darkness.

  "Your friend?" the man said softly.

  "Yes?" Saris said.

  "Is he hurt?"

  Saris nodded and said, "He is."

  A young man with piercing green eyes and long dark hair that hung over the side of his face stepped forward from the shadows, extending his hand to say, "I will help you. My name is Lugan."