by Peter David
“Who knows how long that might take,” Peart said dismissively. After a moment of thought, he asked, “Does this thing have a lifepod?”
“Sure, but it…Wait a minute,” Mirg said. “What, you want to ride that thing down to Triex?”
“Any other ideas?” Peart turned to Arex, who seemed to favorably mull the option. Peart smiled a bit at himself. “Then let’s get on board. A standard pod should be heavily shielded enough to withstand reentry through nearly any atmosphere.”
“I only have one, and it’s a one-seater,” Mirg said.
“Sure, but a Brikar one-seater should be roomy enough for two of anyone else,” Peart said. “Let’s get going.”
“And I’m not going down after it, so I’ll have to add it to your fare,” she said. “Those things aren’t cheap.”
Peart smirked and said, “Hey, this one’s on Starfleet.”
He felt sure of himself and his idea right up until the moment Mirg loosened the pressure hatch and he actually got a look inside the pod. With one body couch, a sparse control panel, and no viewports, the lifeboat looked to Peart more like a coffin. He turned to Arex, who tossed his cylindrical travel case inside.
“I guess that settles it,” Peart said as he crawled into the pod. “Mirg, you have the coordinates of our destination. Give us your best shot.”
Arex moved his spindly form inside the pod as Peart did his best to hug the wall. The Triexian did not seem to take up much room, Peart decided, but the situation rapidly redefined his idea of personal space.
“Best of luck,” Mirg called inside before sealing the hatch.
Lighting within the pod dimmed a bit as Peart attempted to shift to a more comfortable position. He felt completely cocooned and might have been able to relax were it not for the bony pressure in his abdomen.
“Um, Arex, I think your knee is in my side.”
“Oh, pardon me,” he said, making an adjustment in his position.
“Nope, your other knee.”
“All right,” he said, patiently shifting again.
“Um, try your other other knee.”
A shift, and with it, Peart felt some relief. “Thanks, that’s got iii iiiiiiiiiiit!”
His head struck the pressurized hatch of the cramped pod as it shot away from the freighter. Peart felt as though the tiny craft were skipping along a watery surface while in a shallow spin, mental images that only intensified a wave of nausea.
“Uhhh…um, Arex, I’m going to be ill,” Peart sputtered, trying to brace himself against the curves of the lifepod’s hull. “No…check that…I’m going to passss…”
A slamming thud jarred Peart’s head against something hard, snapping him back to consciousness. Before he could shake it off, two more thuds bounced him into a wall, then into Arex, who moaned a bit in response.
“Where are we?”
The Triexian’s voice quavered. “I know the drag chute deployed. I am guessing we are on the surface of Triex.” A pause, and then he spoke again. “The readings show a Class-M atmosphere. We must be down. Shall I blow the hatch?”
“Please, Arex,” Peart strained to speak. “I think I’m sitting on my head here.”
A rush of sound and orange light filled the lifepod’s compartment, and Peart extended an arm into the brightness. Feeling around for a purchase, he gripped something and was able to steady himself to his feet and peer out.
Wow…If this is Triex, I might not have left.
The lifepod had settled in a green field teeming with waist-high grasses. It was bounded by what looked to be a lush forest, and Peart spied snow-capped mountains on the horizon. He hopped out of the lifepod and was joined a moment later by Arex.
“This is a beautiful place you have here, Arex,” Peart said, genuinely impressed. “It’s tough to get to, but worth it.”
“This is an exceptionally lovely region of my world, so do not be unduly awed,” he said, “but thank you. I must admit that the view is very welcoming to me. I just hope it means what I believe it does.”
“And that is?”
“That we are not far from my ancestral home,” Arex said.
A whipping, whooshing sound started to fill the air, and Peart turned to the source of the noise. What appeared to be an open-cockpit hovercraft sped toward them, piloted by a pair of Triexians.
“Welcoming committee?” Peart asked.
“Law enforcers, I imagine,” Arex said. “We have nothing to fear.”
The hovercraft came to rest within steps of the downed pod, and Arex greeted its occupants with a series of gravelly chitters and clicks. What Peart took for a conversation ensued for a few moments, and then Arex motioned him into the hovercraft.
“They said they received a message from a Brikarian freighter and locked on to our position as soon as we were launched,” Arex explained as Peart settled into his seat. “Amazingly, we landed not fifteen kilometers from our intended destination.”
Peart felt a cool breeze tousle his hair as they sped away from their drop zone and across the field. “So you’re almost home?”
“Almost,” Arex said as his expression began to fade into a neutral, solemn state. “I must meditate. Please excuse me.”
The agent settled in for the ride as Arex withdrew into his own thoughts. Peart noticed that he had lost track of time in a personal sense, but a quick check of his data padd confirmed what he suspected. Since he got the assignment, fewer than twenty hours had elapsed on their journey to Triex. Arex should be arriving in plenty of time for his family obligations, under Special Agent Dulmer’s estimations. Peart rested his eyes, letting himself slip into a meditative state of his own, to a point. He dozed a bit, letting the rocking of the hovercraft lull him during these last few min—
SKRRREEEEEEEEE!
The shrill screaming from the front seat jolted Peart awake just enough for him to see the produce cart they were about to broadside.
“Arex!” He shook the meditating form beside him to alertness just as the hovercraft smashed into the cart, sending the quartet of passengers sailing out of the open cockpit and into the air. He saw the pilot and his fellow officer plunge headlong into the contents of the cart just before his own world went soft and wet.
He sputtered out a mouthful of pulpy fruit with a sloppy sound, wiping wetness from his eyes in time to see Arex rush into a nearby cottage. Peart breathed a sigh of relief that Arex was uninjured by the mishap, then dredged himself from the sickly sweet mess and shook some of the glop from his arms and legs.
Peart bounded through the door of the cottage, panting and still dripping with reddish pulp. He squished his way into the room, listening for some sign of the home’s occupants, and then his ears picked up the faint sounds of sobs echoing down a hallway. Leaving soggy prints in his wake, he slowly moved down the hall, which turned into a large bedroom. Peering into the room, he stopped and held his breath.
Several dozen Triexians had packed themselves into the room, all surrounding what Peart assumed was Arex’s father’s deathbed. As he crept forward, the crowd parted slightly, affording him a better view. His eyes widened as he recognized Arex from the back, kneeling at the side of the bed. After a few moments, Arex rose and turned toward the crowd, silently making his way from the prone figure upon the bed.
As he approached, Peart saw Arex’s wet, swollen eyes set within a dour expression, which softened a bit when Arex noticed that Peart had arrived.
“Thank you, my friend, but I was too late,” Arex said softly. “My father has passed.”
“No,” he whispered as tears welled up in his eyes. Peart pushed ahead to get his own look at the frail form of the Triexian, ashen and almost translucent against the pillow-strewn bed. His heart sank deeper into his chest as his breath came in gulps. The stilled patriarch of this solemn Triexian family died without knowing the extent of the personal sacrifice his son, a Starfleet officer, had made for the Federation. His long life ended before he realized how hard Arex had struggled just to be a
t his side one last time.
Peart turned away, letting tears run down his cheeks unimpeded. He wept for his new friend’s loss and for his failure in getting them to Triex on time. He hesitated to approach Arex again; almost fearing that he might hear Arex’s heart—
CRACK!
The agent heard a gasp fill the room as he stopped in his steps. A second brittle pop fractured the room’s silence, followed by some steady crackling sounds. He felt compelled to turn his gaze back to the supine Triexian…
And Peart saw the ashen form split down the middle.
A voice shouted, “Iglappa! It begins!” Peart felt his jaw go slack as the ashen form of the Triexian elder started falling away from the bed in flaky pieces. A soft chant of “Iglappa! Iglappa!” swirled in the room as a trio of pinkish, slimy hands worked from the center of the husk to clear it away.
Arex stood by Peart, grabbing him on the shoulders. The shocked agent turned openmouthed to Arex, stunned into silence. “Um…”
“The Day of Rebirth is upon us, Stewart! My father returns to us!” Arex jogged up to kneel once again at the bedside as the elder raised his damp, pinkish head from its resting place.
“What is this?” the newly molted being asked. “Arex? So, you bothered to join us at last? I thought for sure you would miss my third Rebirth in a row.”
Arex nodded as the crowd erupted into laughter. “I regret my lateness, Father. I have been away for some time.”
The elder smiled, and smiling seemed to be much easier for him than for Arex, Peart noted as he caught his breath for the first time in what seemed minutes. As Arex passed him the opened container of meechacha ointment, he dipped into it with one hand and began spreading it onto his puckered, moist form. “My life begins anew, my loved ones! Let the feasting begin!”
A cheer filled the room as joyful Triexians filed past an incredulous Peart and into the hall. He stood motionless until Arex walked past, then snatched out to him as if his arm were a striking serpent. He walked with the startled Arex into a quieter corner of the room.
“What is this, a joke? He just molted!” Peart wanted to loosen a mixture of rage and frustration that had quickly boiled to the surface.
“I beg your pardon, Stewart,” Arex said calmly. “This is a celebration of my family, the most important one in twenty-five years.”
“He does this every twenty-five years?” Peart felt blood churning in his ears. “I risked life and limb time and again to get you back here to see your dying father, and now he’s not dead after all? He’s just…just…pruney?”
Arex laughed. “Stewart, calm yourself, please.”
“This happens to you Triexians all the time?”
“Well, we don’t talk about it much,” he said. “It is hardly a topic of discussion in xenobiology classes, I can assure you.”
Peart felt his rage start to subside. “So…so, I didn’t blow this mission?”
“Not at all. You did nothing wrong. We have arrived just in time. In fact, you were present for a Triexian rite that few offworlders get to see,” Arex said, putting a hand on Peart’s wet and sticky shoulder. “You certainly are welcome to join my family at the Feast of Rebirth…minus the ripened waterfruits, obviously. But first, we must report our success to Special Agent Dulmer.”
Peart felt the tension ease from his shoulders as they left the elder Triexian and some attendants to his preparations. “So I will get a passing review?”
“Absolutely,” said Arex as they approached a large dining room. “I daresay that my father may even bestow upon you an honorary birth ranking as his twenty-sixth child. Assuming you pass the feats of physical prowess.”
“Um,” Peart said, “and just what does that involve?”
“We arm-wrestle,” said Arex, and smiled, until he must have noticed Peart’s unhidden expression. “Stewart, that was a joke.”
D’NDAI OF CALHOUN
A Lady of Xenex
Peg Robinson
Under the leadership of M’k’n’zy of Calhoun and his brother D’ndai, Xenex was able to throw off the yoke of Danteri oppression and become a free world. After this historic occasion, but before M’k’n’zy would leave Xenex and join Starfleet under the new name of Mackenzie Calhoun, M’k’n’zy was obligated to help a widow from his clan named Catrine sire a child since D’ndai, the older brother, was away on business. “A Lady of Xenex” takes place shortly after M’k’n’zy performed this service to Catrine, following D’ndai’s return to Xenex.
Peg Robinson
Peg Robinson lives in Lompoc, California, with her husband, her daughter, and four very bossy cats. She’s sold stories to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Volumes I and II, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, and several magazines that died before she could actually see her stories in print; she’s also won an honorable mention from L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest. She lives quietly, and likes it like that. She also cooks one heck of a fine saag panir, among other things, and her figure shows it.
It wasn’t the worst of times, but it wasn’t the best, either. It was the dawn of a new era on Xenex, and if you’d asked D’ndai of Calhoun, freshly returned from his first trip off his home planet, it looked like the era was starting badly.
Old Man V’rdan, G’lyndr of Clan G’lyndr, was a cocky bastard. He leaned with his butt propped on the fountain in the courtyard of Calhoun’s administrative building and bellowed his greeting up to D’ndai, standing on the entry landing above.
“Praise to the Calhoun, and the house of the Calhoun, and the hair of the Calhoun’s head, may it never grow less!”
As a child D’ndai had dreaded him. He still did at twenty-four: V’rdan made famine, war, and plague look safe.
D’ndai forced himself to welcome his guest.
“Praise to the G’lyndr, and all his men, and his flocks and herds and his lirga lying fat in their styes.”
He wondered why V’rdan and his retinue had popped up barely two days after his return from Danter. It reeked of secret agendas. During the rebellion Calhoun and G’lyndr had been allied against the Danteri, but they had once been famous feuding partners.
V’rdan squinted up at D’ndai and gnawed the fringe of his mustache, ignoring the Calhoun retainers that ringed his party, hands hovering by their weapons.
“So your trip to the Federation and Danter hasn’t made a mincing little phaser-fighter out of you.”
“They only had me for six months,” D’ndai responded, dryly. “I’m still a proper Xenexian dry-gully back-stabber.”
V’rdan brayed with laughter. His men joined in.
“Next he’ll invite us to drink and poison the flask,” a G’lyndr war boy said. D’ndai recognized him: G’nard, heir to Clan G’lyndr.
G’nard and D’ndai had never liked each other.
“You mean like Argil of G’lyndr did to Sa’am of Calhoun? I won’t copy G’lyndr. If I kill you I’ll come up with something original or I’ll stick to tradition and cut your throats.”
Everyone knew it was a joke. If it hadn’t been, the G’lyndr party would already be dead, or at least too busy fighting to waste breath laughing. D’ndai laughed harder than anyone. Then he leaned forward on the rail of the balcony.
“So, G’lyndr,” he said, with a touch of grit in his voice, “what brings you to Calhoun?”
V’rdan pushed his son forward like a prize venn-ram being considered for breeding.
“I have come for a Calhoun bride for my heir. I seek Catrine, widow of the hero An’dr, for my dearest son: a treasure for a treasure!” His eyes glittered with mischief and challenge. “So, Calhoun: What do you think of that?”
Matchmaking was a key source of feuds on Xenex. Therefore D’ndai struggled to maintain a bland façade. It wasn’t easy. He’d come home early for a reason, and that reason was named Catrine.
V’rdan’s grin grew even bigger. “G’nard will be chief when I’m gone, Calhoun. Get him and you get an alliance with G’lyndr. Turn him down and�
��let’s just say Clan G’lyndr would be insulted.”
“You and An’dr always said she was a beautiful woman,” G’nard said, smirking. “It seems a shame to leave a beautiful woman unwed.” The glitter of malice in his eye left no doubt he’d been looking forward to D’ndai’s dismay.
The thought of Catrine with that puffed-up braggart was not a happy one.
Neither was the thought of catapulting Clan Calhoun into a feud.
“The tribal elders must confer,” D’ndai said, firmly. “Catrine is a Calhoun widow. Calhoun must insure her future.” He was relieved to see Elder Sh’nab jittering nervously by the archway that let out onto the street. “Sh’nab, arrange refreshments for our guests. Then meet me in the sand garden.” He didn’t wait for Sh’nab to agree, just nodded to V’rdan, and entered the building. Once out of G’lyndr’s hearing he began to swear.
He was still swearing when Sh’nab joined him. D’ndai scowled up at his advisor. “What is going on that you haven’t told me about?”
Sh’nab tugged one side of his mustache, and shifted uneasily. “Quite a bit. You’ve only been back for two days, after all. The first day you had warp lag and mostly slept. That night the clan gave you a party, and you mostly drank. The second day you mostly threw up. Not a good time to give a briefing.”
D’ndai said a very rude word. “What does V’rdan think he’s doing blackmailing Clan Calhoun? And what makes him think I won’t have him and his filthy heir killed in some alley before I ever let G’nard make a match with any Calhoun woman?”
“That wouldn’t be wise,” Sh’nab said. “Clan G’lyndr has allied with the Thallonians.” The way Sh’nab said it, it sounded a lot like “You’ve got three weeks to live” or “There are tribbles in your silo.”
“So? We’ve been dealing with them for over ten years. V’rdan of G’lyndr’s not stupid. Of course he’s dealing with the Thallonians.”
“G’lyndr has an exclusive deal.”