met with resistance as Shadow held his shoulders down. "Give yourself
a minute to recover," she ordered.
"Yes, ma'am." It was a weak echo of the impudent scoundrel's form of
address to the captain.
Shadow bit her lip, caught unprepared for the sob of relief that
surged through her. Haldersen snapped his fingers to get the attention
of the humans. The aliens were withdrawing, leaving the humans alone
once more.
"Well, I guess we showed them," Tom joked faintly, his voice rasping
uncertainly.
"Shut up, Tom," Malista whispered. "Sven, you and Ethan help me get
him to his feet. We can make him more comfortable on one of the beds."
She was hanging onto her self-control by a thin thread. Any minute now
she was going to start screaming and once she started she might not be
able to stop.
Haldersen helped Ethan up, then the two of them reached down for
Paris' outstretched hands. The lieutenant submitted to being hauled to
his feet and half-carried and half-dragged into one of the smaller
chambers by Haldersen and Shadow, Ethan limping along behind with the
help of Delaney and Lamont.
Truthfully, Paris felt weak and dizzy and probably couldn't have made
it on his own. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened. The last
thing he remembered was the alien poking at him with that
stick---painstick. That's what it reminded him of. One of those
Klingon painsticks. Longer and with more punch to it, but the same
type of weapon.
He glanced up as he was deposited on the hexagon-shaped bed. "Everyone
stay together. Come on in to this room. I don't want to take a chance
on any of us getting separated from the group again if we can avoid
it." He took a deep breath and exhaled it on a low moan. "Owwwwwwww.
My headache is definitely back. I do not recommend that you try that
yourselves, boys and girls."
The away team crowded into the smaller room, taking comfort in the
physical nearness of the others. Malista sat next to Tom on the bed
and compulsively checked his pulse once more.
He met her concerned eyes and smiled reassuringly. "I'm okay, Sis.
Just tired."
She shook her head mutely, lips pressed tightly together. She refused
to meet his eyes.
"What happened?" Tom asked. "Why did they give up and leave?"
She shrugged. Her hands went to his shoulders and tightened on them
convulsively.
Megan Delaney stepped nearer the bed and answered his first question.
"You tried to keep them from taking Malista and they hit you with one
of those sticks. Some kind of energy weapon. You dropped like a
meteorite and stopped breathing. Your little sister here saved your
life."
Unspeakably moved but trying not to let it show, Tom brought his long
fingers up to stroke Malista's cheek. "Thanks, Sis. I guess it's a
good thing you started taking lessons with the Doc, huh?"
The kind words and gentle touch were the proverbial last straw. Silent
tears began to trickle down Malista's face and she flung herself face
down on his chest, snuggling into the crook of his neck and releasing
her fear and relief with mute trembling. The other four crew members
moved away slightly to give the twosome as much privacy as possible
under the circumstances.
Tom sighed and patted her back gently. His little sister really was
having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. On top of a lousy
month or two. He just wished he could do something about it. When the
shaking eventually stopped, he tugged lightly on her ponytail. "Okay.
That's enough. Come on, Sis. My shirt's getting soggy. Next time, you
get to make Harry's shirt all wet. And no wiping your nose on my
sleeve either."
Her choked laugh as she sat up preceded a swipe at his upper arm.
"Don't you EVER do that again!" she commanded. "I don't suppose you
have a handkerchief?"
"Nope. Sorry. Left the last one on the holodeck, I think. I wasn't a
Boy Scout. Never prepared," Tom quipped, reaching up to wipe the tears
from her cheek with his thumbs as his fingers framed her face.
A large hand dangled a white handkerchief in front of her tearstained
face. She traced the hand visually back to its source, Sven Haldersen.
"Thanks." She took the offering and tried to scrub away all traces of
her emotional outburst. At least this time she hadn't burst into loud,
noisy sobs. She felt slightly ashamed of her lack of control. All the
others seemed so calm. They were taking everything in stride. Why
couldn't she?
The big Swede shrugged. "They took my shirt, but they left me my
pants---and my pockets. I always carry a handkerchief. I *was* a Boy
Scout," he boasted as he smiled and winked encouragingly. "Eagle
Scout, Troop 410, New Sweden Division."
Chuckling and shaking his head, the lieutenant dragged himself up to a
sitting position and crossed his legs. He grabbed Malista and hauled
her up to sit beside him. It didn't take much persuasion. She slipped
her fingers around his wrist, reassured to feel the strong pulse
beating there. "Okay, team," Paris announced. "Everyone on the bed.
It's time for a staff meeting."
Megan eyed him disbelievingly even as they moved to comply. "I've
heard of informal command styles, but really!"
"Come on, Delaney. We need to talk and we might as well be comfortable
while we do it. I'm not suggesting an orgy. Though the aliens might
find that interesting to observe, come to think of it." That remark
provoked rueful smiles and broke the tension, just as he intended.
Shrugging, Megan squeezed into place between Haldersen and Simms.
There was barely enough room for all six to sit on the bed's surface.
"Okay, Lieutenant. What's the plan?"
"First of all, let's discuss what we know or think we know about our
enemy," Paris proposed. "Did anyone get a good look at one of them?"
"Those hoods or robes or whatever pretty much cover them from head to
toe---so to speak," Lamont commented.
"They're really tall and seem to like hexagons," Simms reported,
feeling a little foolish for stating the obvious.
"That's it?" Paris said. "That's all we know?"
"They have four fingers on their hands, arms like tentacles, skin
that's sort of scaly, and they don't taste very good?" Malista
offered.
Four sets of eyes stared at her. Paris grinned.
"I bit one," she explained in a very small voice.
"What did they taste like?" Paris inquired curiously. "And, please,
don't say like chicken---" Her only response was to elbow his ribs.
"Ow. Okay. Sven, when we were discussing Ethan's and Megan's injuries,
you said something about the aliens were probably testing the range
limits of the joints. That scientists always study the anatomy of the
animals that they capture. Is that what you think is going on here?"
Haldersen nodded hesitantly. "It's just a guess. But it would fit in
with our standard procedures. The kind of tests we would run on non
sentient life forms. Or on life forms we aren't certain a
re sentient."
"Like trying to understand our social setup by pairing us off?" Lamont
pondered. "I wonder what conclusions they've come to. And why did they
stop and just leave us alone? I thought they were going to drag
Malista off somewhere. What would be the purpose of that?"
Haldersen was uncomfortably aware that everyone was looking at him.
"I'm no expert. I don't know anything about these aliens either..."
"You're the closest we have to an expert and if you're right and we're
the subjects of a study, maybe you can help us predict their next
move. Or figure out their conclusions and what they'll do about them."
Paris smiled at him calmly. "Don't worry, Sven. We're not expecting a
miracle from you, just an idea of what to expect. So, elucidate. If
you were in charge of this experiment, what would your conclusions be
so far?"
Haldersen rubbed his chin as he thought for a few moments. "This is
like building a house of cards on a very shaky table, but let's give
it a try. Okay, let's suppose that the probe was meant to look for
intelligent life forms. It came across Voyager and we somehow
triggered its programming. It selected our crew for testing and the
six of us as the test subjects."
"Why?" Megan interrupted. "Oh, I know we decided it had to do with eye
color, but what does that mean? Why would they be looking for color?"
"Maybe color is more important in their culture than it is in ours,"
Malista whispered in Tom's ear.
He pulled slightly away from her and squeezed her hand. "Don't tell
me. Tell everyone. This is a staff meeting. We need to brainstorm our
ideas. We may hit on something important."
Shadow cleared her throat. "I was just thinking that maybe color is
more important to them than to us. With some species color has a great
deal of significance. I mean, like birds or insects or---"
"Insects!" Haldersen said, snapping into alertness. "The hexagon
shape. It's found in some hive building societies."
"You think they're insects?" Simms asked dubiously.
"Of a sort. That might explain a few other things. If it's a hive
society, they might have a form of telepathy or a non-audible
language. Like bees on earth that perform a dance to give instructions
to tell the others where to find food sources," Haldersen concluded.
"How does that help us?" Delaney demanded.
"For one thing, in a hive society there is only one leadership. We
don't have to worry about factions," Simms mentioned. "They're all
working toward the same goal."
Paris nodded. "Yeah. That might be important later. If we get around
to negotiations. Now to get back to our situation. If you were running
the tests, what conclusions do you think you'd have reached based on
the tests we know about?"
Haldersen scratched his head. "Well, we don't really know what was
done while we were unconscious, but I would imagine it was a
superficial physical evaluation. They probably looked us over, took
some samples..."
"Like my hair and fingernail," Malista supplied. "And they took
samples from Tom. He has a whole series of puncture marks on his back.
Janine was exposed to cold. Ethan and Megan had their joints tested.
Sven's feet were turned blue by whatever they did to him and he was
exposed to high temperatures."
"It looks like they spread the testing out among the six of us. So
they wouldn't use up one of their test subjects?" Megan speculated.
"That makes sense. At first we were separated. Trying to see if we
would try to escape. Probably looking for signs of intelligent
behavior. An indication that we knew we were captives," the Swede
theorized.
"I saw you. All of you. A viewport opened to each room and I reacted
to seeing you. Malista responded kind of violently when they went back
for a second sample or whatever it was they intended. That's when she
bit one of them," Tom explained with a sly grin. "He didn't get out of
the way fast enough. That's when they sent her to me. Maybe they were
hoping I could make her behave? Or they just wanted to see what we'd
do?"
"Your reactions must be the reason they put us all in here together.
To study our interactions. Trying to determine our social structure,"
Haldersen muttered, thinking aloud. "They must have us under
observation. When we were brought together, our first reaction was to
take care of each other, though we don't have the equipment to
demonstrate our medical technology."
"What would that tell them? I mean, what would that mean to them?"
Lamont asked, then answered her own question. "Compassion can be
considered a trait associated with sentient behavior, but in and of
itself, it doesn't necessarily denote sentience. I mean there are lots
of non-sentient animals that demonstrate nurturing behavior."
"And what about when they tried to pair us off?" Ethan chimed in. "We
resisted their attempts to order our pairing. What conclusion would
they draw from that?"
"Don't look at me!" Haldersen protested. "I don't know. They're just
as alien to me as they are to all of you." He stumbled to his feet and
moved across the room to stand near the doorway, gazing out into the
larger room. It was obvious the mild-mannered scientist felt out of
his depth on this unexpected and involuntary away mission.
To everyone's surprise, it was Malista Shadow who made the first
effort to soothe his agitation, perhaps because she felt as out of
place among this team as he did at this moment. Her shyness and
self-consciousness forgotten to meet another's need, she left her
place by Tom's side and with great temerity laid a comforting hand on
Haldersen's arm. "It's all right, Sven. We don't expect you to have
all the answers. We're just brainstorming, like Tom said. You've
already helped a lot. You were the one who figured out why they had
such a hard time knowing what to do with me. You really do seem to
have some insight into what they're doing."
Megan Delaney joined the two of them, insinuating a flirtatious and
somewhat proprietary arm around his waist. "Yeah, honey. We're in this
together. Come on. Sit down and enlighten us some more. Sometimes I
wish I'd paid more attention to classes outside my specialty," she
confided, batting her eyes flirtatiously at the biologist. "But then,
if I had, I wouldn't have an excuse to pick the brains of handsome
men."
Flattered and calmed by the attention of two lovely ladies, the big
blond returned to the circle. Malista slipped back into place at
Paris' shoulder, accepting his nod of approval with a swift smile.
"What I don't understand," Ethan complained, "is why after almost
killing the lieutenant, they just went off and left us like that. They
didn't even make another attempt to take Malista or any of us with
them. What was the point of dragging Malista away, if they weren't
really going to take her?"
Lamont interlaced her fingers through his as she spoke thoughtfully.
"I think they were going to take her. Maybe to study h
er more
carefully to see how she fit in. She's the obviously different one in
the group---I'm sorry, Malista. I don't mean--"
"It's okay," Shadow replied. "I know what you mean. If they've figured
out our genders, they know I'm different from the other females. You
and Megan are both much shorter than I am, which makes me different
from you two. If they're going by coloring, I'm the only brunette,
which is different from all of you. Of the six of us, my skin is the
darkest. You're all very fair. My eyes are a darker green than
Ethan's. If color is really a matter of importance to them, I may seem
to be an aberration. Maybe they don't have my kind of color
combinations here."
"What kinds of social structure are there? What do they think we have?
Based on what they've seen of us so far?" Delaney asked.
"A hive?"
"Why do you say that, Malista?" Paris said.
"Well, there's a tendency to think others organize themselves the way
you do."
"I don't think so," Lamont murmured. "That might have been their
original impression of Voyager. That it was a hive traveling through
space. But our behavior hasn't really been hive-like. And in hives,
there's a great uniformity of appearance. Those in the same job
function or social class tend to look alike. For example the Hamidions
on Vualkar Five."
It was a classic Academy textbook example. Everyone but a bewildered
Malista nodded agreement with the ensign's assessment. Reminded once
more of her lack of Academy training and education, Shadow sank back
Trials 04 Shadow's Trial Page 41