Prynn slid the harness up over her thighs and fastened it around her waist. Phillipa double-checked her work, and once she was certain that the harness was secure, she attached the cable.
“I’m only looking out for Shar’s safety,” Prynn said quietly.
“Of course you are. So am I,” Phillipa said. “But I’d advise you to examine your motivations more carefully—they might not be as selfless as you think.” She took the ensign’s phaser and deactivated the safety. “You need to be ready to use this,” she said, reattaching the weapon to Prynn’s waist.
Prynn said nothing, her resolve evident in her eyes.
As Phillipa watched the young woman ascend the rock, it began to sink in just how uncertain the outcome of their mission was, especially given the powerful emotional components. Thia was dangerously conflicted, and the closer they drew to their goal, Phillipa guessed, the worse it would become. Shar appeared to be focused, but he held himself apart—his aloofness could be problematic. On the other extreme, Prynn was an open conduit, her emotions surging so close to the surface that the merest provocation could initiate an overload.
Another beep from the belay device. Shar was ready for her.
Smiling wanly as she thought of her charges, Phillipa remembered how exhausting it was being in her twenties when each twist of life and love felt impossibly serious. And while she recognized that the two ensigns had developed much maturity in surviving their respective traumas, they were still young. Mistakes would be made and forgiven; they would live to love another day. She gave a good hard pull on the cable, and finding it taut, began her ascent.
Had the mission allowed for it, Shar would have indulged in a study of his surroundings. The feldspar cave-grotto flashed blue as it reflected the sunlight reflecting off the clear water. He could see smokefish streaking around the pools, scattering with each step he took. Once Phillipa arrived in the cave and they’d repacked their climbing gear, the hiking began in earnest. As they followed the creek backward, the beige sandstone walls revealed a dramatic geological history with fossils, cavern paintings, and petrified wood embedded in the bluffs.
The team followed along the meandering creek for hours, emerging out of the cave into a narrow slot canyon—perhaps two arm spans across. Tall, water-polished walls closed in on both sides, squeezing out the sky and creating deep pools of shadow on the barren canyon floor. Stillness, unbroken save by the gurgling water, testified to the remoteness of this place; layer upon layer of rock compressed together had formed the canyon walls, revealing a history beyond living memory. He knew his ancestors had once sought refuge in this rugged country, but Shar felt as if he were among the first ever to walk this water-smoothed limestone path. None of them spoke. The desire to avoid detection would be the obvious reason, but he could sense awe from everyone—a sense of being small, of insignificance in the face of such majesty.
“Astonishing, is it not?” Thia said, so softly that the others couldn’t hear.
“I had no idea…” Shar said. Near the top, gold-soaked daylight saturated the cream and rust and brown of the rock walls, exuding a glorious, cathedral-like solemnity.
“We’ve lost touch with our past and this place is where we came from. You’re bound to connect with it.”
“You really believe that? That this is where our species evolved?”
Thia nodded. “That’s what the Codices say.”
Shar was dubious. “But proof. Relics. Bones. Rock carvings. We know someone was here anciently, but how do we know that someone was what we think of as an Andorian?”
“Where is your faith, Thirishar? You believe that science has the tools to save our people, but you aren’t so foolish as to pretend that you understand all of its mysteries. That is faith. Or perhaps that is your obstacle—that you believe the chance to save our people lies outside.”
“Let me anticipate—you believe that the Infinite will save us.”
“No, I believe that as we, as a people and as bonds, become one—become Whole—we will find our answers. Until then, the gates of Uzaveh are closed to us.”
Shar sighed, shaking his head. Maybe once he would have agreed with her. Maybe now, part of him wanted to believe her. But he was too skeptical by nature to accept such an answer. While he had seen many inexplicable, even miraculous occurrences in his short life, Shar had yet to view any as attributable to a god of Andor.
Weeks ago, when the observant Bajorans on DS9 attended all-night services to thank the Prophets for once again saving Bajor from a threat and restoring their Emissary to them, Shar had wondered what Bajor had done to deserve such protection. Whether the Prophets were gods or nonlinear beings who existed outside space and time didn’t matter: semantics, as far as Shar was concerned. What did matter was that these powerful entities cared about the Bajorans enough to influence the course of events so that Bajor would continue to thrive. Where were Andor’s gods? If anyone needed divine mercy, it was the Andorians.
“How does going backward result in progress?” Prynn said, interrupting Shar’s thoughts.
Glancing back at her, walking a few paces behind, Shar saw the challenge in her eye and was intrigued. He stepped closer to Thia so that they could walk three abreast.
“I don’t accept your assertion that having faith is going backward,” Thia said.
“I wasn’t implying that it was. But from a purely outsider point of view, all this forcing together of bonds to be ‘Whole’ doesn’t appear to be working out too well.”
“Really, Ensign,” Thia said, “I would have thought a Starfleet officer would be more inclined to withhold judgment of a culture she obviously does not understand.” Before Prynn could fire off a retort, Thia continued: “The policy of forming bonds by design evolved only as a means of coping with our present circumstances, and only in the absence of a more permanent solution. Andorians are not able to produce enough children to sustain our species anymore. There are now less than ninety million of us left, in all the universe, where once we were almost three billion strong.
“But there was a time when our numbers were not so diminished, when having children was not so difficult. In that time, bonds formed freely, and we became Whole by choice, not by necessity. We hope to see such a time return, but for that to transpire, we must invest in the future.”
“By sacrificing the present,” Prynn said.
Thia stopped and looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re procuring the future by giving up the here and now.”
The entire team halted. Thia glanced briefly at Shar before her gaze returned to Prynn. “We’re fighting for our lives.”
“No, you said it yourself: You’re fighting for the future. You’re paying with your lives. You’ve reengineered yourselves socially to believe that your first responsibility is to prolong the survival of your species. You indoctrinate yourselves with that belief from childhood. Your children think their highest purpose is to create more children. And to fulfill that purpose, they’re raised to be the best possible partners, lovers, and parents—to want the bond, and to love bondmates they haven’t even chosen.”
Thia lifted her chin. “It is a responsibility we embrace, and we celebrate it joyfully.”
“Well, most of you do, but that cultural mind-set leaves little room for failure, doesn’t it? A single health crisis or fatality—hell, even a single voice of dissent—before children can be conceived, and four lives are essentially destroyed. The very thing you’ve been taught is your greatest purpose in life is gone, unless you find an unbonded stranger with just the right genetic profile to step in damn fast. But I suspect most shattered bonds aren’t that lucky, am I right? One broken link in the chain, for any reason, and it all comes apart.”
“That’s enough, Prynn,” Matthias said.
“How dare you,” Thia hissed. “How dare you presume to judge us, you whose kind has never had to face such a crisis, or such choices. By what right do you condemn us?”
“I don�
��t condemn you,” Prynn said gently. “But I question any system that produces what I think are unexamined consequences. Maybe it’s buying the time your species needs. But what I’ve seen—what I’ve experienced since I’ve gotten to know Shar, and since I’ve come here—makes me wonder if it also isn’t killing you all inside.
“It’s no wonder your people have gained a reputation for violence. All the pressure you put on yourselves, all the self-inflicted stress you endure throughout your lives, it’s a miracle you aren’t all suicidal.”
As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Shar could see that Prynn regretted them and wished she could call them back. Eyes wide, she looked pleadingly at him. “Oh, God, I’m sorry…Shar, I…”
Shar stepped calmly in front of her. “Is that really what you think?” He watched Prynn struggling to decide what she should say, saw the calm settle over her face as she chose.
“Yeah…yeah, it is.”
“Then don’t be sorry. Never be sorry,” he told her, and resumed walking. He could feel their eyes on his back.
“That’s all you have to say?” Thia asked.
Shar answered without turning. “I suppose I could remark on the irony of hearing my own long-standing arguments with my zhavey replayed by two different individuals, but other than that, no.”
“How can you allow an alien to speak of Shathrissía in such a manner?”
Shar stopped and turned to face her, frowning. “How can you, as a scientist, not even consider her arguments? True, Prynn will likely never truly know or completely understand the extreme circumstances that have led to what our culture has become, but she has, I think, accurately summarized the side effects of the steps we’ve taken to hold back our extinction. We may indeed buy the time we need to save ourselves as a species…but I have wondered if merely staying alive is enough of a reason to keep living.”
“That’s enough, all of you,” Phillipa snapped, cutting off whatever response Thia was about to make. “Much as I understand the need for this kind of exchange, this isn’t the time. It’s counterproductive to our mission, and it’s going to stop.” Phillipa looked up. “We’ve got more immediate problems, anyway.”
“Sir?” Prynn said.
“Look up.”
The team complied. A swiftly moving dark cloud mass shrouded the sky. The low growl of thunder quivered the air.
Shar checked his tricorder. “Two air masses collided. The barometric pressure is dropping rapidly. A storm should be here any second.”
“Run,” Thia said, her steady composure belied by her admonition. “We have to get out of here.”
They had cleared only a few hundred meters before torrents of rain poured into the canyon, rendering the smooth rock slick and dangerous; moving swiftly and safely became challenging. Prynn repeatedly lost her footing, twisting her ankles and bruising her knees. The rain fell faster than she could blink it away; she found her way by feeling for handholds in the canyon walls. The deafening clatter of the downpour drowned out all other sound. Stumbling, she crashed into a rock cluster; she tried finding her feet, but the slurping mud refused to release its grip on her boots.
A hand on her arm. Shar. Pulling her up, he towed her along beside him until they emerged out of the twisty narrows into a basin—the Great Wash, a cankered lunar landscape scarred with craters and broken stone. The shortest route across the bowl meandered in and around lava rock domes and rounded mushroom-like knobs. Prynn glanced behind and, satisfied that Phillipa and Thia could keep up, started jogging with Shar toward the other side.
Then she heard the crash. A wind gust raged through the basin; the ground shook.
Flash flood.
She exchanged panicked looks with Shar. Higher ground. We have to find higher ground. Through the curtain of rain, she squinted: on the opposite side of the basin she saw a series of thick, gray shale fingers splayed down a terraced slope of an ancient seashore.
They ran.
Throwing clots of mud and water spray behind her, she pumped her legs and arms as hard as she could, sputtering and choking on rainwater, her flight fueled by fear. She saw the dark shapes of her teammates off to the side as they struggled to reach the terraces.
The roar intensified as it ripped through the canyons. Prynn crawled over the top of the ledge first, braced her foot against a boulder, pulled Shar, then Phillipa, up to safety.
The deluge came. A rushing wall of muddy water, rocks, plants, and uprooted trees burst from the narrows where they’d been minutes before.
Below them, through the blurring gray sheets of rain, she saw black—Thia’s turban.
She didn’t wait. Leaping off the ledge, Prynn skidded down the muddy silt of the terrace slope, using her feet to break the speed of her fall. She reached Thia and quickly ascertained that the zhen’s foot had become wedged in a crevasse. From behind, Prynn hooked her arms under Thia’s and pulled; over the roaring water, she heard Thia’s pained cries.
“Point your toes,” Prynn shouted, her words barely audible in her own ears. “Flatten your foot!”
Gritting her teeth, Thia complied. Prynn pulled Thia straightaway from the crevasse, freeing her foot. She threw her arm around the zhen’s waist; Thia draped her arm over Prynn’s shoulder. Allowing Thia to shift her weight onto her, Prynn pushed toward the terrace. Any hesitation and the greedy floodwaters would consume them. Each breath burned and her strained muscles quivered, but she pressed on toward the ledge—and safety.
Shar had thrown down the climbing cable and Prynn shoved Thia toward it, then lashed the cable around the zhen’s shoulders and under her arms. As Shar pulled Thia onto the terrace, Prynn, with help from Phillipa, dragged herself up next to her. The group sat in silence, watching the water rip through the basin, foaming and tossing, effortlessly ensnaring boulders, trees, and mounds of sand and dirt.
Then, as abruptly as it began, the rain stopped. The clouds parted, revealing the serene periwinkle face of night. Gradually, the floodwaters relaxed; the currents slowed. A few minor rapids had been created, but the worst of the danger had passed.
While they waited for the weather to stabilize, Phillipa mended Thia’s sprain and administered some mild painkillers. Save a few scrapes on her face, Prynn was unhurt. Thia tried to thank her, but she shrugged off the zhen’s gratitude. What she did, she would do for anyone. Nobility didn’t figure into it. And after their heated exchange, despite what Shar had said, she was feeling anything but noble.
As Shar passed out ration bars, Thia said, “Since we’d need a watercraft to navigate the basin, we can’t follow our original route. We’ll have to climb up this series of terraces and out onto the flats. After three or four kilometers across the plateau, there’s a switch-back trail descending into the Coral Canyon via the Temple Path.”
“Are you fit to travel?” Phillipa asked Thia.
She nodded, flexing her ankle.
Phillipa reassembled her medkit. “You’ll have to lead, Shar. I’ll belay after Prynn and Thia.”
Coiling up the cable, Shar sidestepped out onto a ledge. Hands above his head, he felt the rock face, searching for the best spot to place a piton for the first belay station.
In order to avoid a tumble into the muddy floodwaters flowing through the basin, the climb proceeded slowly into the evening. Phillipa made only one misstep where she hadn’t reset the tension on the belayer after Prynn. Too much slack resulted in her losing her footing, falling backward, and dangling in midair, swinging like a pendulum. She’d had the sense to right her body so that she took the impact of the crash into the rock wall with her backpack instead of her face. Shar, who had been supervising her climb from the top, had made the necessary adjustments to stabilize her position. After a few precious minutes (and a face full of gritty sandstone), she’d found a foothold to wedge her boot in and she’d resumed the climb. Now, she stood—gratefully—on the most secure ground she’d seen since the security aquacraft had transported them to the beach five hours ago.
A
spiderweb burst of white light momentarily blinded her; she dropped her head, pinched her eyelids together, and blinked away the visual disturbance. She shook her head, discovering that her neck was sore. Massaging the muscles at the base of her head, she winced at their tenderness. Pebble-sized glandular lumps resisted her touch. No time to worry about it, though, she thought, betting that she suffered from a pronounced lack of sleep, tinged by dehydration and hunger. So what’s next…?
Shar, Prynn, and Thia knelt in a half-circle, the tricorder resting on a backpack in front of them. Phillipa listened a few moments as the three of them discussed the best path to take. They have everything under control. I’ll just work on prepping the gear so we can leave.
As she stood upright, a burning flush surged through her skin and she put a hand to her forehead: hot. Looking down at her hand, she noticed clusters of red welts, some pustule-like. They itched. She rubbed them against her expedition suit. She had been exposed to plenty of allergens since they started off. Damn. I’ll have to get the ointments later.
“You all ready to leave?” she said as she loaded the last of the equipment into Shar’s pack. Her own pack felt binding and uncomfortable over her shoulders. She shrugged it off, adjusted the straps.
Thia nodded, and held up the tricorder for Phillipa to see. “I’ve mapped out the quickest route. If you want to pass me your tri—” She paused, her jaw dropped. She blinked. “Shar, hold up your wrist light.”
“Where?”
“On Commander Matthias’s face.”
Phillipa winced at the beam being thrown in her face. “Is this necessary?”
“I see them,” Shar said.
She heard the fear in his voice. “See what?” Phillipa said, rubbing her eyes with her fists. The bright beam stung and her eyes watered. And she suddenly felt prickly, crawling tickles on her cheeks. She swiped at her face with an open palm, saw black and red smudges on her hands.
Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine Page 32