Precipice

by David Mack

  The councillor nodded at Captain Kutal. “Leave us.”

  Kutal tensed. “You should not be left unguarded with—”

  “I am armed, Kutal,” Gorkon said. “If I need you, I will call for you. Now step outside.”

  Grudgingly, Kutal unlocked the door behind him and left the briefing room. The door hissed shut as Reyes glared at Gorkon and asked, “What is this? Your overdue revenge?”

  Gorkon lifted his chin, and his smile took on a smug air. “Hardly. I prefer to let my enemies self-destruct. Case in point: you. I couldn’t have planned anything as spectacular as that which you have brought upon yourself.”

  Ezthene’s voice crackled through his vocoder as he interjected, “Diego’s question stands, Councillor.”

  Arching one eyebrow, Gorkon replied, “On a first-name basis, are you? I must say, Diego, perhaps I misjudged you. You’ve learned something about diplomacy after all.”

  “And you’ve learned to talk too much,” Reyes said. “You must’ve picked that up serving as Chancellor Sturka’s lackey.”

  Gorkon’s smile vanished. For a moment there was a flash of anger in his eyes, but then he drew a deep breath, and his ire subsided. “That was the past. I’ve brought you both here to discuss the future.”

  “What future is that?” Reyes asked. “The one where I face a kangaroo court on Qo’noS and get my head chopped off for doing my job? Or the one in which all your people starve to death because your government spends too much on its military?”

  Curling his hands into fists, Gorkon clenched his jaw for a moment. Reyes took perverse pleasure in testing the limits of the Klingon politician’s patience.

  Finally, Gorkon said, “The reason I have expended capital and favors to capture the two of you alive is that you have both, through your public statements and actions, demonstrated yourselves to be big-picture thinkers when it comes to the Gonmog Sector.” To Ezthene he added, “Your people call it the Shedai Sector.” He glanced at Reyes. “The Federation refers to it as the Taurus Reach.”

  Reyes remained suspicious of Gorkon’s agenda. “Okay, but you didn’t bring us here just to sing our praises. What do you want from us?”

  “I seek your counsel,” Gorkon said. “You both have detailed knowledge of what is at stake in the Gonmog Sector, and the lengths to which your governments will go to control it. Because you both have demonstrated a willingness to rebel against the belligerent mind-sets of your peoples, it is my hope you will be willing to talk with me.”

  Ezthene asked, “What specifically do you wish to discuss?”

  “I want to find a way to steer our nations off this road to mutual annihilation,” Gorkon said. “The Federation is sending more ships to Vanguard. The Tholian Assembly is conducting reconnaissance of vulnerable worlds in the Gonmog Sector. And my own government is making moves to seize territory that will cut off Vanguard from supplies and reinforcements, as a prelude to its destruction. And we all know why.”

  He keyed some commands into a terminal on the tabletop in front of him. A holographic image of a complex DNA molecule appeared above the table and rotated slowly. “This amazing little string of genetic information has pushed our peoples to the brink of all-out war. None of our leaders is willing to compromise or surrender. But this is a war none of us can win—it will consume us all and leave nothing behind.”

  Gorkon turned off the hologram and added, “We three must find a middle path to peace, or else we’re all going to die.”

  10

  February 23, 2267

  Quinn nudged the Rocinante out of warp speed a few million kilometers from the Class-M planet he and Bridy Mac had been sent to scout. Checking the proximity sensors, he said to Bridy, “Looks like we’re all alone out here.”

  “Good,” she said. Her attention was fixed on the readout from the ship’s sensors, which were scanning the system and its third planet. “No radio activity on the planet’s surface,” she said. “I’m reading a lot of metallic debris in orbit.”

  “Satellites?”

  “I think so.” She adjusted the settings on her console. “Some of them have nuclear cores, but none of them is active. No signal activity.”

  Pointing at the planet’s two small moons, Quinn asked, “What about those? Any signs of life?”

  “Negative,” Bridy said. “Airless rockballs.”

  The impulse engines thrummed as Quinn piloted the Rocinante into orbit. “I’ll keep clear of the orbital junkyard if you want to take a closer look at the surface.”

  “Already starting my sweep,” she said. “Looks like all but the tropical latitudes are glaciated.”

  He settled into a steady orbit a few hundred kilometers above the highest satellites. Locking the course into the autopilot, he asked Bridy, “What about life signs?”

  “Mostly concentrated in a band around the equator,” she said. “The southern coast of the planet’s largest land mass has a decent variety of plant forms and a few groupings of humanoids large enough to register on sensors. And it looks like the oceans are teeming, even under the ice sheets.”

  Quinn reclined his seat. “Maybe I’ll do some fishing.”

  “Stay on task for once, will you?” She tapped more commands into her console. “Based on the distribution of refined metals and residual topographical features, I’d say this planet used to have hundreds of major population centers. It might have supported a population of as many as two billion people.”

  Despite his efforts to remain aloof, Quinn found himself curious about the planet. “What happened to ’em?”

  “No idea,” Bridy said. “A war. Maybe a natural disaster or a virus. No way to tell without going down there.”

  “Never my favorite answer,” Quinn said.

  Bridy relayed a set of coordinates to Quinn’s navigation screen. “Let’s start with an aerial recon of the deserted cities. I want to get a sense of how long ago this civilization collapsed. After that we can head for one of the larger settlements on the southern coast.”

  “Your command is my to-do list,” Quinn said.

  He plotted a course through the ring of dead satellites and readied the ship for atmospheric entry. The massive orb of the planet filled his cockpit canopy. Seconds later, a pale orange wall of superheated gas formed ahead of the Rocinante as it made its swift descent. Turbulence shook the small cargo vessel, and the ship’s spaceframe groaned in protest. The planet’s curved horizon quickly flattened as Quinn dived toward its surface. His ship shot like an arrow through a gray mountain of clouds, and he leveled the ship’s flight.

  Glancing at his instruments, he said, “Comin’ up on your first point of interest.” He pointed to starboard. “That side.”

  “Can you take us down to two kilometers?”

  “Sure.” Quinn eased the ship’s nose downward, dropping them to a lower altitude within seconds. “How’s that?”

  “Perfect,” Bridy said. “Give me a slow circle of the area.”

  Quinn guided the Rocinante through a shallow banking turn that took them around a massive urban ruin. The crumbling remains of once-majestic skyscrapers were overgrown with plant life; some structures appeared to have collapsed only recently, cutting wide swaths across the lush vegetation that was reclaiming the former city.

  In a hushed voice he said, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.”

  Bridy nodded, apparently recognizing the quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias.” With her gaze still fixed on the decaying metropolis, she replied, “Yup.” She looked at Quinn with a somber expression. “Let’s move on and see what the next site looks like.”

  “You got it,” Quinn said.

  Over the next few hours, they saw dozens of former cities, all in various stages of decay: conquered by wilderness they had once displaced, swallowed by seas they had once kept at bay, buried by a desert’s inexorable march, or ground into dust by continent-wide sheets of ice nearly two kilometers thick.

  “I’ve seen enough,” Bri
dy Mac said as they cruised over a moonlit coastline dotted with the disintegrating tops of sunken towers. “Set course for the largest humanoid settlement. Rig for silent running and make our altitude ten kilometers.”

  “On it,” Quinn said. He entered the changes into the helm and relied on his instruments to guide him as night fell and made it impossible for him to tell where the sky ended and the sea began. “I take it I’ll be doin’ the talkin’ if we decide to go down and meet the locals?”

  “As usual,” Bridy said.

  One of the reasons she needed him as a partner was to skirt Starfleet’s all but sacrosanct Prime Directive, which forbade its officers from making contact with or interfering in the affairs of pre-warp cultures. As a civilian, Quinn wasn’t bound by the Prime Directive. To preserve their cover as traveling merchants and prospectors, he was responsible for initiating contact with species that would be off-limits for Bridy, who was still a Star-fleet officer, albeit on detached duty.

  “Okay, we’re in position,” Quinn said.

  Bridy ran another sensor sweep and studied the accumulated data. “Looks like they’ve built on the remains of an old city. Livestock, natural fertilizers in the soil, diverse agriculture … it’s a pretty large farming community. I’m also reading a lot of small sail-powered ships along the coast.” She smiled at Quinn. “There’s your fishing spot.”

  “I’ll dust off my rod and reel.” He folded his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair until it was almost horizontal, and stared through the canopy at the flickering stars. “We gonna hover up here all night? Or go down and say hello?”

  The lithe brunette shut off the sensor apparatus. “Fine, let’s go meet the locals. But this time keep the ship ready for a quick liftoff. I don’t want a repeat of that mess on Cygnar.”

  The mere mention of that planet made Quinn wince. He would never forget the ambush with which that world’s primitive reptilian natives had greeted him and Bridy several months earlier. “Don’t worry,” he said, massaging a phantom pain where a dart had pierced his ribs. “Running away’s my specialty.”

  McLellan watched the shadowy details of a gutted city rise to meet the Rocinante as Quinn piloted the ship to a landing on a mostly level patch of rubble-strewn ground surrounded by four ancient brick walls with no roof.

  The ship hovered over the landing site for a few seconds, extended its landing gear, and made a smooth vertical descent. With a mechanical whine the wingtips folded into their landing configuration, up and inward over the bulky warp nacelles, which together were as massive as the ship they served. Quick spurts from the directional thrusters kicked up dust and vapor beneath the ship, which submerged into the cloud and settled to the ground with a soft tremor of contact. “Nicely done,” McLellan said.

  “Years of practice,” Quinn replied, switching the ship’s systems to ready-standby and activating its exterior floodlights. Beyond the walls that surrounded the ship, several humanoid shapes were approaching. “Looks like we drew a crowd.”

  “Do they have torches and pitchforks?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  She got out of her chair. “Then let’s go say hi.”

  Quinn followed McLellan aft to the gangplank. She pushed a button, and the ramp descended with a whirring of motors and a hiss of hydraulics. Curtains of white vapor billowed downward and spilled to either side of the ramp, blanketing the ground with fog. Quinn walked outside, taking the lead.

  Stepping off the ship behind Quinn, McLellan saw him undo the leather safety strap on the holster of his stun pistol. She kept her own compact phaser tucked out of sight under her shirt, in a sheath attached to her belt.

  They waited underneath the thick aft section of the Rocinante’s main hull, which was shaped like a narrow wedge. The exterior of the ship was a mottled dark gray with pale splotches from years of crude repairs at various alien shipyards. The cockpit was covered by a dark-tinted canopy.

  A group of six humanoids clambered through gaps in the walls around the Rocinante. The first ones through reached back to assist the others. Once they were all inside the gutted structure, they stepped into the glow of the Rocinante’s floodlamps.

  The entourage consisted of what looked like four males and two females. Tall and thin, they had slender limbs and six long delicate digits on each hand. Their chins and foreheads were prominent and squarish, their noses were broad, and their large ears protruded horizontally from their heads. All of them wore simple clothing that looked as if it had been made by hand.

  At first McLellan thought they were albinos, but as they moved closer she saw they had pale gray complexions. All six of them had long straight hair the color of white gold.

  Their most striking feature, however, was the single lidless multifaceted eye that ran the length of each individual’s brow, between the nose and forehead.

  The female leading the group stepped forward, paying no heed to Quinn, and addressed McLellan. With a subtle forward bow, the female said, “My name is Naya Parzych. I am the cynosure of Leuck Shire. Welcome to the planet Golmira.”

  Not wanting to give offense by trying to deflect the woman’s attention to Quinn, McLellan mimicked the slight bow and replied, “Thank you. My name is Bridget McLellan, and this is my friend and business partner, Cervantes Quinn.”

  Dipping his chin, Quinn said to Naya, “Ma’am.”

  McLellan said, “Our species calls itself human.”

  Clearly picking up on the cue, Naya replied, “We refer to ourselves as Denn.” She cast a disapproving look at Quinn’s sidearm. “If you’ve come in search of plunder, I doubt we have anything worth your trouble.”

  Quinn raised his palms. “No slight intended, ma’am. It’s just for self-defense. Doesn’t even have a kill setting.” His words seemed to calm Naya, so he continued. “You and yours seem pretty calm for folks meeting alien visitors.”

  The group’s other female stepped forward and spoke with quiet contempt. “You’re not the first offworlders we’ve met. Or the second. Or the third.”

  Naya glared at the younger woman, who backed away half a step. Looking back at Quinn and McLellan, Naya said, “On behalf of my daughter, Ilka, I apologize. However, her frustration with offworlders is one shared by many of our people.”

  McLellan folded her arms. “May I ask why?”

  “Previous visitors to Golmira left when they learned we had no resources worth exploiting,” Naya said. “Our carbon fuels and fissionable elements are long since depleted. Some aliens came in search of special crystals but found we had none. Others were looking for worlds to colonize, but with so much of our planet covered in ice, and the rest barely arable, we must not be worth the effort it would take to make us habitable.”

  Quinn smiled. “Sounds like they just didn’t know a good deal when they saw one. I mean, sure, your planet’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but to folks who know what they’re doin’, it’s a garden spot waitin’ to happen.”

  Naya frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  McLellan tried to cut her partner off. “Quinn, maybe we—”

  “If you folks are willin’ to trade with offworlders, I’ll tell you who to do business with: the Federation.”

  Wrinkles creased Naya’s high forehead. “The what?”

  “The United Federation of Planets,” Quinn said. “Hundreds of worlds, dozens of species, all workin’ together in peace. They’re pretty far from here, but they got ships and people comin’ out this way all the time now. I’ve been dealin’ with ’em for years. They’re the most honest business partners I’ve ever had.” Shooting an abashed glance at McLellan, he added, “Present company excepted, of course.”

  With a glare and a smile, McLellan replied, “Of course.”

  The Denn behind Naya murmured among themselves. She looked over her shoulder at them, then turned back. “I have no reason to doubt your word,” she said to Quinn. “But I have to ask, why would a civilization so advanced that it could repair a world in such dire conditio
n as ours want to do so? What do we have that would make such an effort worthwhile?”

  It was to McLellan’s dismay that Naya’s question made Quinn flash a broad grin and reply, “That’s an excellent question. Let’s all go discuss it over dinner.”

  It was the strangest farming village that Quinn had ever seen.

  The walk from the Rocinante to the center of the hamlet was short. Along the way they passed patches of grain that sprouted from the gutted foundations of crumbled buildings. Broken chunks of what looked like steel-reinforced concrete had been used to build everything from low property walls to sturdy small homes.

  Half of a lone skyscraper jutted up in the middle of the fallen city. Its upper portion had apparently fallen away, but there was no sign of its debris. Quinn surmised that any usable materials had long since been scavenged. All that remained now was its metal skeleton, denuded of façade and windows, emptied of contents, and festooned with fruit-bearing vines.

  Cresting the horizon were the planet’s two moons—one full, the other a waxing crescent. They bathed the pastoral but decidedly post-apocalyptic landscape in a pale blue glow.

  Naya, her daughter, and their entourage led Quinn and Bridy inside a squat but solid-looking house of stone and wood. Its main room was appointed with simple wooden furniture, and a small fire crackled in a nook along the far wall. Thick candles flickered brightly from numerous wall sconces, and oil lamps hung from the ceiling, suffusing the room with golden light. The smooth cement floor was the only clue the house had been built atop the foundation of something now gone.

  As Bridy and Quinn entered, a handful of other Denn looked in their direction. Ushering the two humans forward, Naya announced to the room, “Please welcome our guests, Bridget and Cervantes, and set the table for them.” To her daughter she added, “Please go ask the landgraves to join us.” Ilka slipped out the door while Naya led Quinn and Bridy into the dining room.

  “Please, sit down,” Naya said, motioning the humans toward the closest chairs at the dining table. “My brothers and nephews will bring us food and drinks momentarily.”