“So, what, you’re ignoring me now?” McCoy asked.
“No,” Kirk said as he took a helmet from the shelf, eyed the pressure ring to see if it was a match for his suit. “I agree with you. Except for the workers out in the crater, we haven’t seen anyone since we left the infirmary. That’s impossible.”
McCoy stood up in his own suit, needing only a helmet and gloves. “So what are they up to?”
Kirk had thought about nothing else since he and McCoy had stepped into the bright equipment room and found forty-five pressure suits hanging on the wall, much too conveniently. There wasn’t one empty suit stall.
“I can think of two reasons,” Kirk said.
“Enlighten me.”
“This is some kind of Romulan game. They’re toying with us. Either the suits are faulty, or they’re going to beam us back to the infirmary or a prison cell as soon as we step into the airlock.” Kirk selected another helmet from the shelf, handed it to McCoy.
“Or…?”
“They want us to go, Bones.”
McCoy snapped his helmet into place, turned it to seal it, and when he spoke, it sounded as if he were shouting up from a well. “Why would they want that?”
Kirk found it harder to voice the words than to think them. “Because it means I’m abandoning Joseph.”
Kirk pulled on his helmet sideways, felt it click into place, then rotated it to snap the seal. Through the high narrow visor—which was even more difficult to see through than he’d anticipated—he saw McCoy standing directly in front of him. The doctor leaned forward so their helmets touched and they could speak without shouting. “You’re not abandoning him,” McCoy said, his voice muffled but louder than before. “Your boy knows you’d never do that.”
Kirk simply nodded in reply, tried to smile at his friend and hoped his visor let enough of his expression of gratitude show through. But the truth was for all that Joseph was precocious in some ways, at heart he was still a child. And though Kirk had never let a day go by in his son’s short life without telling him how much he was loved by his father and his mother, that young innocence and trust was threatened.
Kirk tried not to dwell on what Joseph’s rescuers…captors…might be telling him now. How his father had abandoned him—proof that he had never been loved. How they were the only ones whom Joseph could rely on, because, after all, they had saved him where his father had failed. Kirk shrank from imagining the insidious whisperers laying siege to Joseph’s impressionable mind, ultimately convincing him he was their savior, their Shinzon, the answer to the Remans’ prayers.
Kirk had experienced the siren call of rank and privilege, had succumbed to it in his youth, knew better in his maturity. But what defenses were there for a child, with no experience in the ways of the world?
He feared for his son. Even as he twisted on his suit’s gloves and prepared to leave this world and Joseph, Kirk condemned himself for what he might be condemning Joseph to.
McCoy held up his gloved hands and Kirk suddenly heard a static crackle in his helmet. “Hey, Jim…has your helmet display switched on?”
Kirk blinked as his helmet filled with light and he suddenly saw the reason for the awkwardly constructed visor. It wasn’t intended for sight. Instead, built into the lower four-fifths of his helmet was a virtual screen, one that allowed him to see his immediate surroundings as clearly as if he wore no helmet at all.
At the bottom of the virtual image floated a series of symbols, which Kirk vaguely recognized as Romulan status indicators. As his eyes focused on them one by one, each smoothly expanded in size, and smaller figures appeared. The smaller figures were definitely Romulan numbers, and these Kirk could read. He just didn’t know to which suit functions they applied.
“Can you interpret the status lights?” Kirk asked.
“No,” McCoy answered. “But since they’re all red, and one of the Romulan danger colors is a vivid green, I’m going to say that all my systems are functioning properly. How about you?”
Kirk ran his eyes along the symbols, almost feeling dizzy as they expanded and contracted. “Nothing that’s vivid green—or a skull and crossbones.” Then the virtual screen seemed to flash. “Did you just get an image flicker?” Kirk asked.
“Jim, look!”
Kirk turned to see McCoy pointing to something on the wall above the rack of helmets. Colored light panels were flashing—amber, purple, amber. “I see it. Can you hear anything?”
“I don’t know how to switch on the external audio. Might be a time signal.”
“Or a warning,” Kirk said. “Maybe they think we’ve gone far enough.”
“Jim! Behind you!”
Kirk turned as quickly as he could in the cumbersome suit, in time to see the door he and McCoy had entered through slide open again.
A crowd of Romulans was entering, all dressed in simple jumpsuits. Work uniforms! Kirk thought. He looked back at the flashing lights, suddenly realized what they meant. “Bones, that’s a shift change! We must have come in here on their rest cycle. That’s why no one was around.”
Kirk looked back at the Romulans. They had to be Assessors. He recognized at least three of them from the gathering in Virron’s chambers. Another one waved at Kirk and McCoy, said something to the Romulan beside him, as if making a joke. Let’s hope they’re laughing at the guys who went to work ahead of schedule.
“Bones,” Kirk said, and though it made no sense under the circumstances, he found he was whispering. “Let’s get to the airlock as quickly as we can. And radio silence after this. We can’t let them hear us.”
McCoy didn’t reply, but he did give Kirk a small wave of acknowledgment. The airlock’s massive door was at the far end of the room, and McCoy determinedly hobbled for it. Kirk followed, quickly catching up, wishing McCoy could move faster.
Then he heard another burst of static in his helmet. A voice spoke in Romulan, then another. Kirk slowed, turned clumsily, looked back. And saw ten Romulans half-dressed in their suits, some already wearing helmets. More Romulans entering.
And then Kirk’s gaze stopped on a single Romulan holding McCoy’s cane, regarding it suspiciously. The rest happened almost in a blur of motion as another Romulan ran his hand over the shelf holding the helmets, clearly upset that something was missing, then turned to say something to the Romulan beside him, as the Romulan with the green-metal cane lifted it and pointed it straight at Kirk and McCoy.
Kirk was galvanized into action. So much for thinking it was a setup, he thought. He turned and grabbed McCoy’s arm, started pulling him toward the airlock.
Then something slapped his shoulder and he let go of McCoy, who continued on his own.
Kirk half-turned to see an angry Romulan waving McCoy’s cane and shouting at him, though the voice seemed distant through his helmet. Kirk pointed at an ear through his helmet, shook his head. Another Romulan stepped up behind the angry one, and pulled on a helmet. Now Kirk could hear someone shouting at him in Romulan over his internal speakers.
Kirk moved his hands in a meaningless gesture, said the first thing that came to mind. “Farr Jolan.”
The shouting stopped at once. The Romulan with the helmet touched the Romulan with the cane, bent close, saying something that wasn’t transmitted. Then Kirk heard a Romulan voice over his speakers, “Farr Jolan.” Then another, and another.
Kirk bobbed his head in his helmet, trying in vain to recall any hand gestures or body language from the gathering he’d attended. Then he had it. The salute! At once, he clenched his fist, brought it to his chest in the Romulan style.
The Romulans close enough to see the gesture actually took a step back. Three possibilities, Kirk thought. I’ve just committed a grave social blunder; I’m a high-ranking official; or I’m just insane.
Kirk decided not to give them a chance to make up their minds. Acting on their confusion, he grabbed McCoy’s cane from the surprised Romulan’s hand, saluted again, said, “Jolan True,” then wheeled about and hurri
ed to the airlock, where as he’d hoped, McCoy already had the thick door open.
Kirk at once pushed through to join McCoy, then swung the armored door closed, pulled the lever handle, and wrenched it as hard as he could.
As a babble of excited Romulan voices exploded within his helmet, Kirk felt McCoy tap his arm, looked to see that he was pointing at the airlock’s second door. Beside it a display screen had come to life.
This time, the symbol was simple to interpret. An amber lozenge shape began to fade to a transparent green on a purple screen. Kirk glanced at the symbols on the bottom of his virtual screen, and sure enough saw another amber lozenge, obviously the symbol for atmospheric pressure.
Kirk moved to stand before the second door, waiting for the lozenge to stop changing color, at which point he presumed the airlock cycle would be finished.
He gave McCoy a thumbs-up sign, and McCoy replied with the same, then reached for the cane, but Kirk held it back. He pointed to the second door, opened his hand in a questioning gesture.
There were now a great many urgent Romulan voices transmitting back and forth. If he and McCoy had inadvertently gone this far because their movements had coincided with a rest cycle or shift change, then another shift of returning workers might be waiting outside.
The lozenge on the screen reached its palest color, then flashed as the floor beneath their feet began to vibrate. Kirk didn’t hesitate, deciding its most likely cause was that the safety interlock was being released from the second door.
He reached out, pumped the door lever. His assumption was confirmed. The door moved easily.
He pushed it open.
There were three towering figures waiting inside the rock-walled chamber beyond, wearing thick red vacuum suits with heavy armor plating.
Remans.
Now there was no way back and no way forward.
Kirk and McCoy were trapped.
17
JOLAN SEGMENT, STARDATE 57486.9
“Farr Jolan,” the elderly Romulan said. “Welcome, Jean-Luc Picard. Welcome, Geordi La Forge. I am Virron, Primary Assessor of Processing Segment Three, follower of the Jolara, the name which means ‘She Who Leads Us.’ ”
Picard bowed his head, remembering what Kirk had said about these people, seeing for himself the near-trance state they were in. “Farr Jolan,” he replied.
Beside him, La Forge said the same.
And then there was silence in the bright, wood-paneled chamber. At least twenty Romulan Assessors, transfixed by expressions of adoration, along with Picard and La Forge, stood in breathless anticipation, waiting for what the Jolara—Norinda—might say.
She passed through the Romulans, as graceful as a dancer, and they, just as gracefully, moved from her path.
There was a small dais of polished green marble in the center of the room to which Norinda had brought Picard and La Forge. Now, beneath the domed ceiling from which the brilliant light of day poured down, she stepped onto the central dais to be bathed in that radiance.
For a moment, Picard was almost certain the haloed figure on the dais was not Norinda, that another woman had somehow taken her place as she glided through her crowd of worshippers. His eyes narrowed to sharpen focus.
A trick of the light, Picard decided, remembering how in the darkness of the passageway, for only the briefest of instants, he had first thought Norinda might be a lost love from his youth. And then how her body had seemed to be without…Picard felt his cheeks flush. But it was true that her jumpsuit had been unnecessarily tight.
His next conclusion had been that she had Romulan ancestry, softened by finer, almost Vulcan features. But here in this chamber, he could see that she was most certainly full-blooded Romulan. Her forehead was high, her short hair space-black, her fringe of bangs cut with laser precision.
Like the others encircling her, Picard gazed at Norinda standing above them, and decided that his imagination had made more of her clothing than reality revealed. What he had thought was a too-formfitting jumpsuit was, in light of day, a standard-issue Assessor uniform, though crisp, and finely tailored. The uniform merely hinted at her alluring form. It did not expose it.
“Farr Jolan,” Norinda sang.
Before Picard had even time to think, he found himself replying with the same phrase, as did all the others, including La Forge.
Norinda clapped her hands like an excited, happy child. “We welcome guests today.” She held out her hand and all eyes turned to Picard and La Forge as a chorus of welcomes in Romulan and Standard swelled.
Norinda smiled beneficently at the guests, as if in the entire universe, only they existed, only they deserved her devotion.
To Picard, it felt almost as if the warmth of the sun above was being directly transferred to him through her, and he longed to be closer to her, to feel that warmth skin to skin, no uniforms, no barriers, no—
Norinda was speaking in Romulan now, her attention turned to others in the crowd. Picard wiped at his forehead, felt the drops of moisture there.
“Captain? Are you all right?”
Picard looked at his engineer, saw the sheen of sweat on his face. He tried to think of a way to phrase the question. “Geordi…are you…having unusual thoughts?”
La Forge nodded. “I’ll say.” He glanced over at Norinda, who sang now in Romulan. “All about her.” He blinked several times, resetting his vision, Picard knew. “She keeps looking different to me, but I can’t pick up any trace of a holographic screen, or optical camouflage. I think she really is changing as we watch her.”
How did I miss that? Picard chastised himself. There were many life-forms like that in the galaxy. Allasomorphs and chameloids that could change shape, sometimes even according to the unvoiced wishes of those around them.
Picard stared at the shining figure before him. But there was more to Norinda than just her physical appearance. Her force of personality was overwhelming. Even over communications channels, she could—
Picard rocked back on his feet and La Forge caught his arm as if fearing he was about to fall.
“Captain!” La Forge whispered.
Picard looked around, but none of the Romulans were paying attention to their new guests. All were looking at Norinda, only Norinda.
“Jim Kirk told me about this woman,” Picard whispered in reply.
“He knows her?”
Picard nodded as it all came back to him, as if whatever influence Norinda had exerted on him, to draw him to her, had also worked to block his memory of the story Kirk had told him last year on Bajor.
“He encountered her years ago, in one of his first missions as captain of his Enterprise. There was a contest. The Romulans won. And Norinda…was the prize.”
Kirk had told the story as the two captains had trekked across the Bajoran desert and faced death and mystery and, perhaps, the Prophets of the Celestial Temple themselves.
In the first six months of Kirk’s original five-year mission, Starfleet had tracked an alien vessel entering an unexplored system at an inconceivable warp velocity. The craft had come into range of deep-space sensors on a trajectory that was extragalactic.
Whatever the craft might have been—crewed vehicle or robotic probe—it was a technological marvel that Starfleet wished to study.
So the Enterprise had raced to the Mandylion Rift, and there had discovered Norinda and her ship, and many other suitors—Andorian, Orion, Klingon, and Tholian. Starfleet had not been alone in tracking the alien vessel’s arrival and rushing to claim it. But Norinda made no claim to be master of her extraordinary vessel. She and her people, the Rel—whom Kirk was never shown—were refugees, she said. Escaping a dire threat they called the Totality, which was somehow responsible for the fate of the Andromeda Galaxy. Picard was aware that at the time, Kirk and Starfleet had no way of knowing that that part of Norinda’s story was true. But as Kirk would later discover for himself, Andromeda was dying in an onslaught of rising radiation levels, and other refugees—most notably, the Kel
van—were also seeking escape to the Milky Way.
Faced with so many demands for her amazing ship’s technology, Norinda had organized a bizarre and deadly competition among the assembled starship captains, offering herself, her ship and its secrets, to whoever could triumph over all others.
Spock said her tactic was logical. Norinda feared the Totality and claimed it would come to this galaxy next. Her goal was to identify the spacefaring culture that could best use her ship to develop defenses against that threat.
But Kirk freely admitted to Picard that logic and an unproven alien menace had little bearing on his interest in Norinda’s contest. He’d viewed Norinda as much a prize as her ship. And a Klingon was his rival.
Years later, on the Bajoran desert, Kirk labeled this response of his as wrong and typically egocentric to Picard. But more important now, he had also described at length the disturbing physiological effect Norinda had had on every male on his Enterprise, including Spock.
Doctor Piper, the ship’s surgeon on that mission, had hypothesized that some remarkably effective form of low-level telepathy was at work. Norinda could influence male minds even over subspace channels, though recordings of those communications had no effect at all.
In the end, facing certain defeat, and for the first time losing a crewman as a direct result of an order he had given, Kirk felt driven to enter the contest himself. He won. But he could not claim victory.
Norinda had one last surprise for him, and while he had played the game within the rules she had set, she had apparently changed those rules altogether.
Kirk’s victory in the contest was hollow.
Norinda gave herself and her ship to an opponent the Enterprise could not detect, nor could Kirk see.
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