Cardassia and Andor

by Una McCormack

  A light flashed on her desktop. Thantis activated the com device. “Yes?”

  “Harbortown police have spotted Thirishar and Ensign Tenmei. It appears they’ve escaped to the city’s lower levels. The police are in pursuit.”

  “Thank you for your assistance, Magistrate. You will be honored for your service to my clan.” Thantis switched off the comm. “At least that answers one of our questions.” Turning to Phillipa, she said, “You must be exhausted. Take some rest time before Thirishar returns. I expect things will become very lively before dawn.”

  * * *

  On her way back to the sleep room, Phillipa contemplated the night’s events, examining the interpersonal dynamics she’d witnessed, and thought that, with the names changed to protect the innocent, this whole Shar/Thriss/Vretha/Thantis scenario might make a fascinating case study for a professional journal. The complex levels of subterfuge and interplay between the involved parties rivaled the Byzantine machinations of old Earth—and this in the twenty-fourth century!

  With Thia’s help, she’d prepared her sleep spot earlier, so when she arrived—yawning—at the sleep hall, she was inclined to go straight into her bundle without taking her clothes off. She’d pulled enough all-nighters to have learned how to sleep anywhere, anytime. Still, a nagging voice reminded her to attend to a modicum of personal hygiene before she collapsed.

  As she fumbled around in her travel bag for her toothcleaner, Phillipa sensed that something was awry; she couldn’t place a finger on what it was. Sibias was always teasing her about being so detail-conscious that she made herself crazy. Could have sworn that when I left, my jacket was on top of my boots. Now it’s draped over there…. She paused. Looked around. In her duffel, her clothing remained in neat stacks, her padds in the same order she’d left them in. On a hunch, she unfastened the interior pocket of her travel bag. She reached in, felt the tiny, green velvet drawstring bag she’d acquired at the marketplace, and pulled it out.

  Empty.

  She dumped her travel bag out onto her sleep bundle. Checked every pocket, every corner. Nothing. Sorted through assorted trinkets, empty snack wrappers, a hardcopy novel, and “good-bye” notes from her children. Nothing.

  The saf was missing.

  * * *

  In the temporary rooms loaned to her by Thantis, Vretha examined the latest folio of Federation Council memos transmitted to her personal database and had to confess that they seemed to be little more than garble to her preoccupied mind. The dust was still settling after the Trill debacle, Councillor T’Latrek had requested a hearing on the latest rumblings from the Romulan Neutral Zone. Councillor Rista had expressed concern that the Grand Nagus was turning a blind eye to Ferengi consortiums conducting illegal mining operations in disputed territories. All of it seemed so…trivial. Each and every one was a legitimate crisis, and yet she could summon no passion for any of them. Not today. Not now, when Andor’s future seemed more uncertain than ever. As earnest as her efforts were to find proof that the rumors surrounding the Science Institute’s alleged experiments were false, she had thus far come up empty. She looked through her message queue to see if her contacts at the institute had sent her anything new, but found nothing. In her growing desperation—and without Zhende’s knowledge—she’d even made several off-the-record inquiries with Andor’s less savory elements, like the nomadic Reiji. We have to bring this situation under control as soon as possible. More serious consequences await if we don’t, she thought, wondering if unified Andor might fragment before this was over.

  Of course, no one in the Federation would have a clue of how severe the rifts between the primary political movements were: Presider ch’Shelos would make certain that the Federation News Service carried several glowing reports about Andor’s exemplary political process—its commitment to free speech and its gentle but firm zero tolerance of violence as a means of effecting social change. At least, Vretha hoped so. Part of her had begun to wonder if the Visionists even supported continuing Federation membership anymore.

  How could we have come to this place where we are so fractured?

  She checked her chrono. Admiral Nakamura had requested she sit in on a subspace conference he was convening to discuss his ideas for new starbase construction, and the meeting was to begin in a few minutes. She wished she had a polite way to excuse herself. The admiral didn’t need her, he needed her clout; her presence lent credibility to his proposals. Why had she agreed to spend an hour of her valuable time listening to a group of admirals and engineers drone on? I should simply cancel….

  Footsteps padded across the floor behind her and she heard the soft taps of fingers at Zhende’s workstation. Once again she gave thanks for her aide’s efficiency in anticipating her needs so well. The subspace link to Nakamura must already be established, or nearly so.

  “Zhende,” Vretha said. She picked up several padds off her desk and turned to hand them back to the thaan. “Can you update my—”

  A hand went over her mouth; another over her eyes. Before Vretha could scream, her world went black.

  * * *

  His appetite satiated, Shar pushed aside the plate piled with empty bones, and washed down his last bite with a swig of wine. He tapped his feet with the irresistible drumbeat, the kinetic bursts of color and constant rhythm of the steel sticks being struck stimulating his senses. Blood churned through him; his attennae twitched restlessly. He lay down on the woven grass mat, propping himself up on an elbow, and watched.

  The chain of charms draped around Prynn’s hips tinkled as she pirouetted under the raised arm of the quartet in front of her and passed through to join the next line of dancers. Grinning breathlessly, she grabbed the hands of a pair of zhen and began the basic footwork—heel to the left, heel to the right, turn to face your partner, lay your arm flat along the shoulder and walk around three times. Shar knew the dance—every Andorian child did: it was performed at the Time of Knowing when bondmates were given to each other.

  When she continued on a fourth time around, she stopped midwalk, and laughed, dropping her hands to her thighs, before reaching out to take the hands of the partners in her line.

  Prynn’s skin glistened; he imagined he could see the heat rising off her body. As she moved to the next stage of the dance, he studied her, each sleek line from the hollow of her back to her throat, the swell of her chest….

  She caught his eye. Holding up her head proudly and maintaining eye contact, she swiveled her body in time with the music, a ripple of skin from her shoulders to her hips and back again. Inexhaustible, the percussion chanted—the shaking rattles, the thunder of the kettledrum, the thrum of the lap chimes. The rhythmic pulse became his; her rhythm became his.

  Lights blinked; yellow, neon pink, and bloody blue reflections smeared together in the greasy rain puddles. The Reiji wailed, gyrating in tempo with the pwam-puda-puda-pwam-pudapuda—

  Through a honeycomb curtain of dancers, Prynn beckoned, wild-eyed and bewitchingly beautiful. Laughing, she raised her arms above her head, linked her fingers and dropped her arms around a shen dancing beside her, pulling her new partner close, challenging Shar.

  He stumbled to his feet, pushed away those preventing him from being with the one who belonged with him. Roughly, he pried the shen and Prynn apart and claimed Prynn as his partner.

  She placed his hands on her hips, his fingers gripping her lower back. Swiveling her hips, she guided him into the rhythm of the music, and he mirrored her moves, brushing warm skin to warm skin.

  Thum-thob-thum-thob-thum-thob-thum—

  The tempo quickened; the dancers became more frenzied. Throwing back her head, Prynn cried out, arching her body into his. She moved faster. Trapped in the dance, Shar held tighter, his thumbs pressed into her hipbones. Her hair in his neck, her breath on his cheek, her chest to his chest, and still the music moved faster. She tossed her head from side to side, the jewelry she wore jangling and flashing, catching the light from the overhead lanterns, hypnotizing Shar.
And still faster until there was no thought, only rhythm that held them both as their limbs tangled together.

  With an ear-shattering gong, the music ended; the dancers collapsed, panting, spent, Prynn among them. Wobbling, she wove back and forth, stumbling toward the mats. She raised a hand to her forehead; her head bobbed and dipped.

  Dizzy from the heat, still reeling from the dance, Shar followed after her, light-headedness making it nearly impossible for him to focus. In and out, in and out—Prynn’s form alternately came closer and receded as if he looked at her through a lens. His own hands trembled. In a fleeting moment of clarity, a thought occurred: Something is wrong.

  Prynn was facedown on the ground, her skin rough with the small bumps humans tended to get when cold. He touched her shoulder—clammy—and rolled her over onto her back. She lolled bonelessly, giggling. She opened her eyes: white clouds over her pupils.

  Drugged.

  Saf. It has to be saf. He tried assessing himself, found concentration difficult, the white-yellow haze of euphoria blurring reason. But instinct told him Prynn wasn’t fine. Bending over her, he gripped her shoulder. “Prynn. We have to…we have to…” His tongue felt thick and coarse. Shaking his head to blunt the wooziness, he looked around to see if any of the Reiji could help him, but saw only faces fogged in hallucination.

  She pulled him down onto her, their bodies flush. “Shar,” she whispered, her words slurred. “Please…” Hooking a leg around his waist, she pinned him, flicked her tongue along his neck.

  Helpless to resist, he allowed her hands to roam over his back, into his hair, hungering for the sensations she coaxed from him.

  He grasped a sliver of will.

  Jerking her by the wrist, he pulled Prynn up to standing; she stumbled into him so they stood nose-to-nose. He hadn’t intended to be so forceful, but he knew she could barely support her own body weight. His breath caught in his throat.

  Her eyes, bright with exhaustion and need and arousal, swallowed any desire he had to speak. Cupping her face in his hands, he caressed her cheek. She turned her head to the side, pressed her lips into his palm; she clung to him. Her touch, her closeness…

  You have to get her out of here. She is in danger.

  Prying her hands off his shoulders, Shar secured his arm around her waist, put her arm across his shoulder, and staggered away from the Reiji encampment. He had no idea where he should go. A vague recollection of stairs—of a ramp—nagged at him, and then he saw it out of the corner of his eye.

  Prynn needs help: He anchored his will to the thought.

  Down a ramp. Switchbacks across and down, until his strength failed and he crumpled, crashing sideways into a wall, dragging Prynn with him. Rushing water roared and he pressed his palms against his sensitized ears to hold back the sound.

  The canal. The canal led to a river. The river led outside the city. He had to get Prynn outside the city. A groaning from deep within the canal tunnels echoed and Shar remembered that banished demons roamed this place. Exaggerated shadows hid them from view—otherworldly or not. They could stay here, rest, wait, sleep…

  Footsteps clicked above them, hollow, shuffling.

  I have to get her out of here.

  Summoning what little strength he had left, he dragged her along the canal front, guiding his steps by the marbleized lights on the water. She clung to him even as she drifted in and out of consciousness; her feverishly hot face against his shoulder, she mumbled delirious nonsense.

  Hurry.

  Though energy drained from his limbs, his senses had gradually become more acute. The rhythms of faraway skin drums thrummed in his pulse, as immediate as if they sounded from the cryptlike canal tunnels instead of far above, where heated revelry swirled in blazing color and light. He reached up, as if he could touch the lanterns dangling beneath the bridges, the delicate arches of scarlet and teal, until the vision vanished and he was thrust back into the cold catacombs of the demon city.

  To propel them forward, Shar pushed off the pocked, corroded stone walls with his hand, though each push scraped skin off his palm. With what strength he could summon, he fought the seductive delirium. Their lives depended on him maintaining awareness—however slight—of their real surroundings.

  An escape. I need an escape. Above him the smooth, curved tunnel ceiling offered no outlet. On all sides, the sharp rock walls were impenetrable; beyond the tunnels, the river, and then the ocean. The only way out was through.

  Smudged in sweat and filth, Prynn lay flaccid in his arm, dying slowly, and it was his fault. This is what I do to the people I love—I hurt them.

  He skidded on the algae-slick paving and stumbled, dropping Prynn. Spinning around, he found her: an unconscious heap at his feet, still as stone. He crouched down beside her, circled her wrist with his fingers, feeling her shallow pulse. Her skin felt clammy—she shivered.

  Scaly membranes growing over his eyes leached color from the already monochromatic scenery. Water and rock. Slender shafts of moonlight reflected off the water’s oily ripples, the light never piercing the black depths. Secrets hidden within the swift currents would remain secret. If he wanted to vanish, this would be the place he would choose.

  I’m lost. We’re going to die.

  Shar’s sight dimmed. His grip on consciousness slipped, slowly slipping away until he teetered to the ground.

  7

  Prynn opened her eyes slowly and immediately regretted it. Shafts of light gouged her eyeballs like phasers through unshielded hull plating. Let’s try this again, she thought, starting off by wiggling her toes, her fingers, tightening her muscles and loosening them. Every joint smarted. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know that a monster of a headache nested at the base of her skull, waiting to be provoked. One wrong move and the claws would come out, digging into her brain with punishing pain. She groaned.

  “Prynn?”

  Phillipa. “Yeah. I think so. But considering that I feel like my skin has been turned inside out and my organs are hanging on the outside, I can’t be certain.”

  A soft laugh. “I’ve had other patients tell me the same thing after a saf overdose.”

  Saf. Saf…I didn’t take saf. Wait. Memories of the previous night flooded her. Sharp flashes of color, drumbeats, the Reiji camp in the lower city, dancing with Shar…Her cheeks flushed hot. Damn. What possessed me? I practically threw myself at him. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Pressure on her neck. A subtle numbing of her throbbing head. Cautiously, she opened one eye and saw Phillipa, out of focus, sitting at her feet.

  “Consider yourself lucky,” Phillipa said.

  Prynn almost laughed, but the shooting pain behind her eyes that the impulse produced shut it down quickly. “Yeah,” she managed to say through her teeth. “Sure feel lucky.”

  “I’m serious,” said Phillipa. “This level of toxicity wouldn’t be easy to treat anywhere else in the quadrant. Fortunately, Andorians have learned how to deal with accidental overdoses, especially among their offworld guests. The treatments the keep physician gave you won’t take effect immediately—maybe a couple of hours—but according to him, you’ll recover quickly after that.”

  When she pushed herself up from the sleep bundle, a wave of dizziness slammed into her, and she eased back down with Phillipa steadying her.

  “Take it slowly. Saf impacts your whole nervous system. Until your body rebalances itself, you might feel—”

  “Like I’ve been hit by a stampeding targ? Yeah. That about covers it.” Prynn closed her eyes, welcoming the blessed black of her eyelids. She burrowed deeper into her sleep bundle, burying herself in blankets. “Shar?”

  A long pause.

  The news must be bad. Please let him be all right. A faint tinge of panic.

  Phillipa took a deep breath. “Shar’s fine, but a lot has happened.”

  “I know. The shuttle, the police—”

  “No. The shuttle was recovered. The Harbortown authorities brought you in. All that will be dealt with in due
time.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Vretha’s missing. She’s been kidnapped.”

  Prynn jerked up—instantly felt like she’d body-slammed into solid ground—and cried out in pain. Cursing, she tried untangling herself from the sleep bundle, but Phillipa was pushing her back in, tucking the blankets around her. “You can’t do anything about it. As soon as I have more information, I’ll let you know.”

  Urgency pushed through her agony. “But I have to—”

  “No,” Phillipa said firmly. “You have to lie down, let the treatments work, and sleep off the pain for a bit longer. You’re very lucky, you know, that you were found when you were. Both you and Shar had lost consciousness. If it weren’t for Anichent, you, at the very least, would probably be dead.”

  How—what—“Anichent?”

  “He followed you and Shar to the keep’s hangar and managed to put a tracer on your shuttle before you launched. He had Shar’s biosignature on file, so he gave it and the tracer frequency to the Harbortown police to help them track you.”

  Warmth ignited in her fingers, burned down her hands, into her wrists and up into her shoulders and neck, devouring her aches like tinder. Phillipa’s voice sounded far away—echoing—as if she were speaking through a funnel. Prynn tried opening her eyes, but drowsiness pressed heavily on her eyelids, forcing them closed and leaving her with one coherent thought.

  Shar…

  * * *

  Phillipa left the sleep hall after Prynn had drifted back into a controlled sleep state. She hadn’t told her, but the keep physician had also administered a mild sedative. Just as well: Once she learned about Vretha’s kidnapping, Prynn would never allow herself time for her treatment to take effect. She would attempt to find Shar, offer him comfort, and ally herself to whatever course of action he chose. Such choices needed to wait until she felt better.

  When they found her and performed a toxicology analysis, it was clear Prynn had consumed more than twice the usual saf dose—and not the same variety as the one Phillipa had purchased. That much she could take comfort in. The keep physician had explained that the Reiji ground their saf and stirred it into foodstuffs instead of following the usual skin application that allowed it to be absorbed more slowly—and safely—into the bloodstream. Phillipa wondered how she would ever explain any of this to Captain Kira—not to mention Commander Vaughn!—and quickly decided that particular problem would have to wait. The more immediate concern was Vretha’s disappearance.