Sarjenka swallowed hard. They wanted her to go into the mine? She’d been pursuing a career as healer to avoid just such an event. “What about the Federation healers? Do they have any transportation devices like the Exiles had? What if they could transport into the mine shaft?”
Nekara shook his head. With the gold-and-red patterned surgical cap covering his fore lobes, his rounded skull almost looked like a moon trying to rotate.
“They’ve attempted it already,” Drankla said. “I didn’t understand what the exact difficulty was, but they said something about the interference having the same effect as a dampening field. Their computers can’t—what did he say? They can’t get a lock.”
“So, it’s up to the miners to go down and get them.” Sinterka said. She saw a resolution in his eyes that she couldn’t recall ever seeing before. “We need people who can fit into small spaces, and the first person I thought of when the subject of healers came around was you.”
She tried weighing the options. If she went down there, she could die in another collapse and never see her parents again.
The same could be said for just standing around on the surface. From the looks of it, the radius of the collapse had spread to at least two kilopars in every direction. It was just a visual estimate, but it certainly looked as though two of her could span the chasm.
And that expanse surrounded a five kilopar-deep hole. What was at the bottom of that hole? The top of another one—this time much deeper and much more dangerous. One that she’d have to crawl into and then try work on patients in Traiaka knew what condition, while the very real possibility of the roof collapsing on her literally hung over her head.
“Nnno problem. We fffind the pppeople.”
In search of the source of the gurgling voice, Sarjenka looked down to see a small oddly shaped creature with a round head—the top being a little bit smaller than the bottom. Its yellow eyes opened sideways, the actual eyelids themselves vertical slits. It had—well, she wasn’t quite certain what it had for an internal support structure, but it looked far more adaptable to small spaces than anyone else in the area. She could see some of that skeleton through the creature’s pale, blue skin. If it wasn’t bone as in a Dreman anatomy, the creature’s weight would be very little, indeed.
Whatever it was, it was fascinating.
Its bright eyes looked up at her. Or, is it sideways for you, little creature?
“Wwwe go down ttto fix problem now?”
Its mouth never left an O-shape form as it spoke, and it sounded as though it were speaking underwater. It wore a black and yellow Federation uniform, and in one of its seven-fingered hands was a tool kit. On its back was a small pack. Sarjenka assumed it contained the tools the creature would need for the expedition.
A quick glance at Drankla and Nekara showed her something she didn’t expect to see in the two men, revulsion.
“‘Harm not,’ Healers,” she said chidingly. “Did you expect members of the Federation all to be human?”
The opportunity to observe this little creature certainly appealed to her curiosity. Was the risk to her life worth such a thing though?
She dropped to her knees, which brought her to eye level with the creature. Holding her hands out, she gave it the standard leevka fingertip greeting. “I am Sarjenka. What should I call you?”
The creature tilted its head to its right. “Lllolo. Lllolo fix machines.”
“Lolo,” she said. “Why are they sending you?”
“Ppput up juranium sssupports,” it said, holding up a small, silver-black beam that was about the length and width of her arm. “Kkkeep mine safe.”
She felt a slight pang of gratitude, hoping her father lived long enough to thank the Federation for taking care of his planet in such a manner.
“And fffind and fffix bbbombs.”
They really think there may be more down there? Her stomach sank. “And what if there are no bombs?”
“Ttthen Lolo work on tttransppporter ppproblem.”
She looked at Lolo’s bright yellow eyes and realized that she had been trying to do nothing more than come up with excuses for being a coward. If this little creature, with its strange speech and seven tiny webbed fingers on each hand could muster the courage to go into probable death, then how could she be so selfish?
Turning, Sarjenka found Sinterka still standing a short distance off. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter
17
Latik Kerjna, Drema IV
Pithead, Dilithium Mine Alpha
Day 2
Sarjenka wiped perspiration from her brow. Shifting her weight as little as possible, she turned to check on Lolo—who was still working behind her—fusing the new duranium supports which the Federation engineers had created for the mineshaft into place as they went. According to one of the officers, who had looked to be a human, but had pointed ears, hair as dark as the night’s sky, and never smiled in the entire time he’d been helping Sinterka instruct them on what to do, the duranium supports also contained a small data pathway built in that would, as he put it, “Allow a targeting signal to get a firm lock through the dilithium’s interference.”
Sinterka had shown her the digging process, saying that this was what had been done since the collapse: One person dug, while another moved the dirt to a safer location. They needed to make sure that as little weight as possible was over the remnants of the shaft, as they couldn’t be sure of the stability of the area around the pithead. Lolo had wanted to vaporize the dirt, eliminating it once it had been brought to the surface, but the creature was overruled by a very robust, good-natured Federation officer named Walsh. The human male had been unsure of how the weapon’s energy would dissipate within the dilithium, and they wanted to mitigate the risk to the rest of the planet as much as they could. He’d seen the reports, and the last thing he wanted to do was chance that the planet would try to tear itself apart again.
Sarjenka couldn’t help but agree. As destructive as the Exiles had been, they had nothing on the tremors. The risk of bringing the superior technology to bear on the problem was just too great.
So, with Sarjenka digging and Lolo working in the supports behind them, they grabbed work kits, water, and headlamps, then walked into the pit to start work.
After what felt like hours of digging in silence, Lolo said, “Ssswim.”
Sarjenka thought she heard a touch of lost spirit in that one word. “Swim?” she asked.
“Yes. Dddust in my gggills. Swim wwwould help. Belandros an ooocean planet.”
Watching her movement, she turned toward Lolo. “Gills? What are those?”
“Bbbreathe in water,” Lolo said, pulling down the neckline on the uniform. She could see what looked like slits in its skin, slowly opening and closing in a rhythm she associated with breathing. Curious.
“Didn’t your people pack water for you to drink?” she asked. “Do your people need water to drink?”
Lolo cocked its head sideways, apparently thinking it over. Finally, it said, “Yes.”
With that, the little creature dug through its pack, moving aside the ration bars the Federation people had given them both and digging out one of the five bottles of water they’d also packed. Lolo unscrewed the top, leaned back, and poured the bottle’s content over its gills. While Sarjenka watched, the gills opened and closed several more times, and murky, dark green water flowed back down the front of its uniform.
The little creature’s yellow eyes brightened, and it wiggled its fingers as if stretching them after a long rest.
“Eeeasy fix. Ttthank you. Tttoo tired to ttthink properly.”
She fought the urge to smile. “Are all of the Federation officers as…different…as you are?”
It fixed her with a noticeably sharpened yellow gaze. “Hhhow different?”
Sarjenka pursed her lips, trying to figure out a way to rephrase the question. When one finally came to her, she said, “The other Federation officers that cam
e with you—”
“SSStarfleet,” Lolo said. “Wwwe are Starfleet officers.”
“All right. The other Starfleet officers—they all look human. And there’s you. What’s Starfleet like?”
“One Vvvulcan. Wwwhen we finish dddigging, I tell you. Oookay?”
Sarjenka’s curiosity was dragged back to reality by that. “Okay,” she said, turning back toward the pile of greenish-brown dirt that rested beneath her knees. They dug for a bit longer—she hadn’t thought to bring a time-teller, so she wasn’t really sure how long they’d worked—when her digging met with a bit of resistance. Her large brow furrowed. It didn’t feel like anything she would have expected to find in a collapse. Placing the shovel aside, she began to gently pull dirt away by hand. Pebble by pebble, she began to uncover it and realized that it was a tube-like object.
Her eyes widened as she realized what, in fact, the thing most likely was.
“Lolo,” she said, “we need to go back to the surface. Now.”
“Nnnow? Wwwhy?”
She quickly reached back and grabbed the portable light. “See that?” she said, shining it on the object. “That’s a bomb. Get to the surface.”
Lolo’s eyes widened. “Bbbomb?”
“Yes. I don’t know if I triggered it or not.”
“Nnnot eeexplode.”
Sarjenka shook her head. “My father got the one he found all the way to the surface before it exploded.”
“Nnno ppproblem,” the tiny creature said, seeming to muster its courage. “Eeeasy fix. Gggo to surface in cccase.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Fffix bomb.” It cocked its head to the side, eyes narrowing. “Sssurface. Gggo.”
“But—”
“Gggo!”
Sarjenka crawled back out of the series of supports Lolo had been erecting, stopping at the opening and turning back to see what it was doing. The little creature had closed its eyes, and was reaching its left hand down into the dirt. She could see the arm occasionally move, almost as if he somehow had muscles under the skin.
Seconds passed until Lolo appeared to get frustrated with something, and then raised its other hand to tap the portable communicator on its uniform. “Lllolo to Tttrosper. Lllock on mmmy signal with tttransporter. Bbboost lock signal as mmmuch as possible. Hhhighly explosive. Bbbeam to ccclear ssspace. Wide dddisperse. Ttthree sssecond dddelay.”
A female voice said, “Explosive, aye. Boosting signal one-hundred twenty-five percent. Three second delay beam out to clear space, wide dispersal.”
What was it doing?
Before she could figure that out, Lolo removed the communicator from his uniform, attached it to what little of the bomb it had unearthed, and reached a hand around it. In one quick, smooth motion, it pulled the bomb the rest of the way out of the ground and threw it straight into the air. A flash of gold told her that the communicator had somehow remained attached. Just as the bomb reached the height of its flight, at least two kilopars over the surface proper, a silver shimmer formed around it, and it disappeared.
Sarjenka could do nothing more than stare. Was that their transporter? She shook her head, attempting to send the fog she felt with the bomb.
When she finally regained her wits, she looked down into the pit. Lolo was standing there, arms at his sides and…was that its toe tapping?
“Nnno problem. Eeeasy fix.”
“Are you insane?” she said, walking back into the pit far more gingerly than she had before. “You could have been killed!”
“Bbbut I was nnnot,” it replied, sounding as though nothing at all dangerous had happened. “Lllolo fix bomb.”
Sarjenka’s eyes went to the blue sky over them and then back to Lolo. “Yes, you did. Would you show us how? We’ve never been able to keep them from detonating.”
The little creature’s head cocked to the side. “Nnno problem. Bbback to work?”
Sarjenka looked down at the mound of dirt that was still beneath them. Shovel in hand, she mustered all of her resolve and said, “Back to work.”
Chapter
18
Latik Kerjna, Drema IV
Bottom of Dilithium Mine Alpha
Day 2
Gold checked the chronometer. Eight hours since her breakdown, and Kajana seemed to have recovered somewhat. She scooted a few inches away from the wall, but she was facing away from them, so what little light they did have from the tricorder’s display didn’t tell him much. She hadn’t turned that panicked look on either of them for at least an hour, though.
He could hear Jakara and Eijeth working at the veritable mountain of dirt that had them trapped. They hadn’t seen much of the two men since they began their work, apparently spurred on more after they realized Kajana’s plight.
He reached down and grabbed another two fingers’ worth of the dried meat. He finished off the bread an hour ago and was almost at the end of his first strip of meat. He’d been trying hard to stagger his nibbles, giving at least two hours between bites, but his arms were beginning to shake just moving to pick up the meat.
The sound of scraping at the dirt mound stopped for a moment, and then Jakara’s voice said, “I think I hear more digging.”
Liankataka pepped up at that. “Finally.”
“I hear it, too,” Eijeth said.
Kajana’s head popped up from its resting place on her knees. “Thank you, Traiaka. How long have we been down here?”
“A little over a day,” Gold replied.
Kajana feebly tried to raise her arm. “I feel weak.”
“It’s the lack of food,” Gold began. “Eat a little bit more of the meat for now. We’ll be okay once we can get to the surface and get a day or two of real food in us.”
The sound of digging resumed. “Hello?” Jakara said, his distant voice raising. “Who’s there?”
No sign of an answer. The digging doubled in intensity, presumably as Eijeth rejoined the effort, and Gold could hear the two men working faster than they had before.
That was when it happened.
A rumbling sounded in the ground around him. Pebbles began to fall lose from the cavern’s ceiling, falling into the water until it almost sounded like a thunderstorm at work.
“What the—?” he started to ask, looking to Liankataka and Kajana to gauge their reactions. Rumbling below the surface of a planet is never a good thing.
Then the screaming began.
Sarjenka stopped digging, her heart leaping into her throat as the rumbling began. The memory of the collapse months before came immediately to mind. It’s over. We’re too heavy.
Behind her, Lolo stopped midway through fusing another piece of reinforcement into place. “Wwwhat ttthat?”
“If it’s—”
She wasn’t given a chance to finish that thought. No sooner did a shovel break through the dirt from the other side than everything underneath the spot she was kneeling gave way at once.
She tumbled down the mineshaft, somehow ending up going down the steep incline on her side. The stones felt like giant boulders, even though they were probably only a fingernail’s width in size. When she thought it was going to go on forever, it stopped in a pool of water and a pelting of pebbles that felt as though she were being pummeled by an ice storm.
She expected Lolo to have been sucked into the mine after her, but when she raised her eyes, she discovered that the little creature had grabbed the rung of the last support. Lolo was hanging by both arms from the duranium pipe, out over the now far more open chasm. “Lolo!”
“Sssarjenka, help!”
She tried to scramble back up the incline, but tripped over something. Flipping her small wrist light around, she discovered an arm floating on the water. Moving the light further in, she realized that arm was attached to a very large Dreman. His eyes were closed, and his mouth hung open just enough for her to see that he hadn’t gotten any water in there yet. “Lolo, hang on!”
The first thing Gold saw in the dim ligh
t was a bulk roughly Jakara’s size hit the pool of water.
The second thing was something about half that size fall behind him, then try to crawl up the mineshaft, until they tripped. Judging by what little he could see of the young woman doing the yelling—Sarjenka, if what the voice he’d heard could be trusted—was barely big enough to be much help. However, even a little help was better than nothing.
He wasn’t sure who Lolo was, but the last thing they needed was their would-be rescuers getting stuck along with them. There was barely enough food left as it was.
He could see a body floating on the surface, but then the young woman stood up, Gold began to get worried. “Sarjenka?” he said.
The young woman jumped back as though she’d been touched by the dead. She had what looked like a Starfleet-issued palm beacon in her right hand and flashed it back toward them. To eyes that had been in relative darkness for a day, the bright light hurt for a moment and then became the most welcome sight he could have imagined. He tried to scoot toward the pool of water, only to discover that his feet felt like nothing more than dead weight at the end of his legs.
“Could you check on Jakara please?” He gestured toward the figure floating face-up—he could now tell—in the water. “He hit the rocks hard.”
Sarjenka leaned over the floating man, shining her light against his chest.
Gold saw what looked like breathing, but at that distance, it was difficult to be sure. “Does it look like he’s breathing to you?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She reached down into the top of Jakara’s work shirt, feeling for something. “He’s got a pulse, so it looks like the fall just knocked him unconscious. Can you help me get him over there with you?”
“Can’t move. My legs took some damage in the fall.” With a shake of his head, Gold added. “There’s barely enough room for the three of us as it is.”
“Sssarjenka!”
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