“I can see no logical reason why its thieves would have kept it intact,” T’Rama told her grimly. “In all likelihood, it has already been destroyed.”
Kimura knew his captain well enough to recognize the barely contained anguish in her eyes—but it seemed to him that the other two Vulcans had almost the same reaction. “First Surak’s katra,” T’Pol said, “now his words. So much of him has been taken from us.”
Sato frowned. “But the words have been copied into every database on Vulcan and throughout the Federation. Even the forgery has the correct text, just with a few subtle errors in the reproduction.”
“But the authenticity of those words has been called into question, Hoshi,” T’Pol told her. “Unless we can prove the Kir’Shara was real, then its wisdom is as good as lost. And if the original is gone, we may never be able to prove it existed.”
“Then we have to prove it was stolen,” Kimura said, leaning resolutely forward on the situation table. “Lady T’Rama, you know the security on that vault inside and out. Have you got any idea how the artifact could’ve been switched?”
She shook her head, looking weary. “I have been unable to formulate a rational hypothesis. The doors to the study vault could not have been opened without the entry being recorded electronically and witnessed by live guards. The storage vault is inaccessible save by its lift. The doors and the top of the lift shaft are under constant visual surveillance, and the feed is embedded with a time code to defeat attempts to loop the image. The chamber is equipped with sonic, thermal, pressure, motion, and chemical sensors. The lift shaft is too narrow for most any humanoid to enter and too sheer to allow them to climb out again. The entire complex is transporter-shielded, and any transporter beam powerful enough to overwhelm the shielding would have triggered numerous sensors across the Science Academy grounds.”
“What about a Suliban Augment?” Kimura suggested. “There might still be a few out there who haven’t been arrested or killed off. And they were engineered to resist detection by most kinds of sensors. One of them could’ve camouflaged himself and snuck in behind a study team, then contorted enough to fit down the shaft.”
“I considered that possibility, Commander,” T’Rama told him without impatience. “There would still have been biological and fiber traces left within the shaft, and there were none. Moreover, we have thorough security recordings of every study session, and at no point is the Kir’Shara unseen or unattended. There were no opportunities to switch it while it was under study, and no evidence of any unauthorized openings of the shaft cover.”
Kimura couldn’t resist smiling and chuckling a little, drawing scandalized looks from the three Vulcans. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to trivialize this in any way—it’s just that this is one of the most perfect locked-room mysteries I’ve ever come across. It’s really kind of exciting.”
T’Rama’s gaze softened, as did Skon’s after the couple traded a look. “I understand completely, Commander Kimura,” she said. “The intellectual challenge is fascinating. And it has been a long time since Skon and I encountered a puzzle we could not solve between the two of us. It is indeed . . . stimulating.”
“Good,” T’Pol said. “Because you will need to devote your full attention to this problem until you do find a solution. I recommend you review all the security data once again, in depth, and see if it brings any new insights. I will report our . . . status to the admiral.” She nodded at the Vulcan couple before moving forward into the bridge proper.
Kimura and Sato exchanged a look. “So. Hours of tedious staring at security footage,” he said.
“Sounds like a lovely evening,” Hoshi answered with that wry twist to her dainty lips that always drove him wild.
“As long as I’m with you,” he murmured, winking.
Sato cleared her throat, turning back to the Vulcan couple. “So! Um, we could adjourn to the briefing room. It’s quieter there.”
Skon and T’Rama traded a look. “Let me instead invite you both to our home,” Skon told them. “My own study is equipped with high-resolution displays sufficient for the security review, yet the surroundings are more comfortable. Also, should we wish to visit the museum vault itself, it is reasonably proximate.”
“Additionally,” T’Rama said, “we could all benefit from a meal before we undertake such an intensive effort. And Skon is an excellent cook. Provided you are both satisfied with vegetarian fare.”
Now the human couple traded a look, and Sato spoke for them both. “That sounds lovely. We’re honored by your welcome.”
“Okay, then,” Kimura said. “I’ll clear it with the captain and arrange for a shuttlepod.”
As he moved toward the captain’s chair, he couldn’t help reflecting on how effortlessly Skon and T’Rama seemed to function as a team—husband and wife freely speaking for one another because they were so much in sync. It pleased him to think that he and Hoshi had a very similar rapport . . . even without being married.
Even without . . .
He quashed the thought instantly. Despite Phlox’s playful query the previous month, Kimura knew that marriage between two members of the same Starfleet crew, let alone the same command crew, was out of the question. Hoshi knew that as well as he did.
But he wondered if she regretted it as much.
10
May 23, 2165
Stone Valley Hold, Vanot
URWEN ZEHERI PULLED GANLER NIBAR under a storm awning just in time to avoid the gaze of the Worldwide Automatics mechanical sentry that whirred overhead. “Jumping jilazi, that was—” Zeheri hushed the boy, who went on in a whisper. “That was close, Urwen. I keep forgetting to watch out for those crazy contraptions.”
“I’ve learned to expect surveillance by now,” Zeheri told the lanky youth. “WWA didn’t stop watching me once they got me fired.”
Ganler gave a cocky smirk. “That’s because they know it just made you more determined. You’ll tear down this beast yet.” He chanced a peek beyond the heavy metal awning. “Especially if they keep doing crazy things like watching people from the air. Who doesn’t know how to hide from things out of the sky?”
“That’s one more reason I’m convinced Vabion didn’t invent these things himself. They’re not designed for our world.”
Ganler rolled his orange-pupiled eyes. “Not your Underlanders again, Ur!”
“Watch your tone, pal. A good inquisitor follows the evidence, not preconceptions. A good news scribe, too,” she reminded the young apprentice.
“Ohh, storms. I get enough lectures on newsgathering from Najola. I don’t need two mentors.”
Zeheri peered out. “It’s gone now. I think we can make the wall if we’re quick. Come on!”
Luckily, Ganler’s legs were as quick as his tongue, so he darted out promptly alongside her and kept pace easily as she ran. Still, they were taking a gamble that WWA didn’t have more mechanical eyes watching them from somewhere. Five years ago, she would have only had to worry about living guards who could be fooled or bribed to look away. Of course, five years ago, she would have had her inquisitor’s badge and a warrant from the magistrate. But Daskel Vabion owned most of the magistrates now.
Thank goodness for Ganler Nibar, then. His mentor, Najola Rehen, may have grown up with Zeheri, but the news scribe found Zeheri’s theories about WWA as implausible as the chief inquisitor had. Like so many others, she couldn’t understand why Zeheri cared so much about the disappearances of a few homeless mendicants and mental patients. Yes, custom said every member of society was a precious contributor in generations like these when the climate worsened and all had to pitch in for mutual survival; but modern sentiments said that those who contributed nothing, those who were drains on society’s precious resources, could not be as worthy of attention. Zeheri found that view hypocritical. Didn’t Vabion, his fellow corporate cronies, and their puppets in the government all
insist that Vanot was entering a time of plenty when modern technology would conquer the climate once and for all and scarcity would be a thing of the past? Why, then, should anyone be considered a drain on society? And why were the numbers of jobless, homeless Vanotli swelling while only those who were already rich saw the benefits from the revolutionary technologies and medical treatments WWA rolled out several times a year? And why were those who protested the growing inequality so often silenced or stripped of their professions, and why were there more and more mechanical eyes watching them all the time lest they speak out of turn again?
Perhaps Ganler did not share her passion on these points, Zeheri reflected, but he was eager and curious; and despite his protests he was fascinated by Zeheri’s wilder theories about the source of WWA’s recent surge of spectacular scientific breakthroughs. So he was willing to assist her investigations when Najola Rehen would not, and Najola was willing to tolerate it as part of his training. So at least Zeheri wasn’t in this alone. Having someone so enthusiastic in her corner, even if he doubted some of her conjectures, helped keep Zeheri going.
Plus she needed his skills as a sport climber to help her scale the wall they now approached, the least protected of the walls surrounding WWA’s manufacturing center in this district of Stone Valley Hold. It was the newest factory WWA had built, its security not yet fully in place, so it was her best chance of getting inside one of the highly secured facilities and learning the secret of how Vabion made the technological miracles that had elevated him to the top of the corporate mountain—and maybe, just maybe, how that secret connected to the mysterious disappearances.
But just before they rounded the last corner to their access point, Zeheri heard voices. She caught Ganler’s shoulder and pulled him short of the corner. “Quiet,” she hissed. “Listen.”
His eyes widened as he caught the voices as well. Zeheri listened closely, finding the cadence of the voices odd, their speech unrecognizable at this distance. She peered around the corner and saw two men and a woman, all adults—and all unusually tall and strong of build. The bigger man and the woman had tightly curled hair and fairly typical complexions, while the slightly smaller, younger man was a bit paler with straight hair. The woman, for some reason, wore no hat.
“Look,” Ganler hissed. “The second man is holding some kind of machine.”
Zeheri pulled out a pocket telescope and looked closer. “You’re right. A flat rectangular box . . . There’s a picture on it!”
“You mean a logo?”
“No, a moving picture! Like a movie screen, but smaller.”
“Glisp!” Ganler breathed, another of those corny euphemisms he’d picked up from the radio serials. One consequence of the reduced birth rates during harsh climate periods was that young folk had fewer peers to corrupt them. “I’ve heard some of the rich folk have little movie boxes in their parlors now. Movies sent right to their homes like radio shows.”
“But not this small.”
“So what are they watching? Raiders from the Underland?”
She punched his shoulder lightly. “I warned you, brat. No, it’s like a blueprint of the factory, but it moves.”
“They must be WWA security. Using some new toy to look for us.”
“No . . . they look as furtive as we are.” The big man gave a whispered instruction to the woman, who nodded. The woman took several steps away from the wall while the big man knelt and cupped his hands. A moment later, the woman ran toward him. He caught her foot in his hands and heaved her upward—all the way to the top of the wall!
“Jumping jilazi—and I mean jumping!” gasped Ganler. His cooling fins, which had just begun to relax as his pulse slowed after exertion, now stiffened again. “Did you see that? He tossed her clear to the top of the wall!”
She hissed for silence from the lad, afraid he’d give them away. But the three big strangers seemed intent on their gymnastics routine. The big one lifted the other man up to where the woman could take his hands and pull him to the top of the high wall. Then he jogged back—close enough for Zeheri to get a good look at his very impressive rear—and took a running leap halfway up the wall, making Zeheri gasp in amazement. He let the others catch his hands and then walked up the wall as they pulled him to the top. She wondered how they could possibly get down, but then they simply hopped from the top of the wall one by one, unconcerned with the drop. From the sound of it, they all landed safely on the other side.
“Have you ever seen anyone that strong?” Ganler asked. “Who are those people?”
Zeheri didn’t dare voice the possibility that came into her head. Even she found it too incredible. But that didn’t stop her from being curious. “Come on. We may be onto a bigger story than we knew.”
If nothing else, the strangers had proven this was a safe place to scale the wall, although they had to do it the slower, more conventional way, with the fine silken line Ganler had concealed under his cloak. But soon enough, Zeheri had her feet safely on the ground inside the wall. She’d rolled up her hat inside her sash for the climb, wondering if that was why the female stranger had doffed hers, and now she smoothed out its gray felt and returned it to her head while Ganler completed his descent. “Any sign of them?” the boy asked as she straightened the brim, making sure it wasn’t brushing against her cooling fins.
She pointed toward one of the interior buildings of the factory complex. “I caught a glimpse of them rounding that corner. Come on!”
They jogged forward, using the building for cover. But no sooner did Zeheri peek around the aforementioned corner than a hand grabbed her, dragged her forward with amazing strength, and slammed her against the wall. “Who are you? Why are you following us?” It was the strange woman, still bareheaded.
“Leave her alone!” Ganler leapt out in her defense, but the woman whirled, pointing some kind of strange gun at him—a gun Zeheri belatedly realized had been jammed into her own sternum a moment before.
But the leaner man intervened. “Easy, Katrina! He’s just a kid.”
Ganler bristled at the characterization. Zeheri was more puzzled. Anyone could see that Ganler had an apprentice’s torc around his neck, and thus that he was old enough to be treated as a full member of society. True, most people would not feel entitled to shoot an apprentice as a result—but then, most people were not WWA security goons. The fact that these people showed concern for the lad suggested they were something else altogether.
Zeheri addressed the leader. “We’re not after you,” she told him, holding his vivid gold eyes. “In fact, something tells me we’re both after the same thing. Answers about Worldwide Automatics and how it makes those fancy little toys.” She glanced over at the movie box in the smaller man’s hands, the weird gun in the woman’s. “Though it seems you’ve got some fancy toys of your own. Competitors, maybe?”
The leader pondered. “In a manner of speaking. You don’t seem to think too highly of Worldwide’s ‘toys,’ Miss . . .”
“Zeheri. Urwen Zeheri.”
He smiled, and her heart skipped a beat. Lousy heart. Get a hold of yourself. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Travis.”
She played it cool. “This isn’t the best time for a social gathering, Travis. We’ve been lucky avoiding the mechanical sentries so far, but the longer we stand around—”
The second man waved his box. “We can tell where the, uh, sentries are. It’s okay.”
“What is that?” Ganler asked, stepping forward to take a closer look at the box. “Can I see how it works? I bet a machine like that could be pretty useful for a news scribe.”
“Uh, maybe when you’re older,” the man said. Then he muttered, “Like about two hundred years . . .”
“The lady’s right, Rey,” said the one called Travis. “We need to find the primary data core.”
“Aye, sir.” He waved the box around, and Zeheri could see the picture on it changing
, as though it were some kind of camera that could see through walls. “It should be this way.”
“All right. Miss Zeheri—”
“We’re coming with you,” she said. Before he could protest, she went on: “Unless you want us to make enough of a fuss to bring down the sentries. And before you get any ideas, Miss Katrina,” she added with a sidelong glance to the woman, “I don’t care what kind of gun that is, shooting us will probably get their attention too.”
Travis looked impressed. “Okay. Follow us.” They set off, the one called Rey leading the way. “And we weren’t going to shoot you,” he told her after a moment. “We’re here to help.”
“Help.” She gave a wry smile. “It used to be we all helped one another when the climate turned hostile. We couldn’t afford not to.”
He furrowed his brow, and she noticed that the bright spots adorning his forehead and temples were oddly sharp-edged. His cooling fins were odd too—they just sat stiffly behind his ears, showing no changes with his mood or activity. And there was something strange about the way he talked, as though his mouth movements didn’t quite match his words. “So what changed?”
She frowned back at him. “Don’t you know?” No one could forget the War of All Holds, the madness when the dictator Fetul had waged a war of conquest well into the beginning of a storm cycle, abandoning all the ancient codes of cooperation between holds during times when the climate became the common enemy of all. No one could be unaware of the hardships all free and decent Vanotli had needed to endure in order to break Fetul’s tyranny, the waste of lives and resources that should have been preserved to weather the impending generations of storms. That was what had enabled the corporations to rise to power in the first place, for their technologies and wealth had enabled the Vanotli to recover and reunite in the wake of the terrible war. Yet now they forgot the lessons of unity they themselves had embraced in the years of rebuilding. Where could Travis, Rey, and Katrina be from if they did not know of the events that had reshaped the entire world in a single generation?
Star Trek: Enterprise - 017 - Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic Page 13