by L. A. Graf
“Outland Station Six!” The man cocked his head for a moment, as if the words should mean something to Sulu, then went on. “We got word that you were here. We came to tell you it’s too dangerous to stay.”
Sulu felt his mouth twist wryly against the strangling cloth of his dust filter. The wind was hammering at him so hard that he probably looked as drunk as the men who’d helped him unload the shuttle. “No kidding!” he yelled back, staggering and lurching against its fickle push.
The camel rider took another step forward, shaking his head. “Not the storm! We waited for the storm so the Peacemakers wouldn’t see us. They’re going to kill you!”
Sulu sucked in an incautious breath and nearly gagged on his filter scarf. He spit it out again with a cough and a curse. “The Peacemakers? Not the Carsons?”
“Whoever. You’re not going to get out of here alive.” The man glanced over his shoulder, not at the unseen town but at the camels now snorting and stamping their broad feet into the dust. They had turned their sloping rumps into the wind, eyes and nostrils both squeezed shut. “We gotta go before they decide to bed down. Come on!”
He headed for his camel, slapping at its chest with one gloved hand until it sank to its knees again. Instead of mounting, the rider moved to the other unmounted beast and got it to kneel, too. Then he looked a wordless question back at Sulu.
There was only the space of a breath in which to choose, and Sulu suspected that his life rode on his decision. Common sense told him that he didn’t know these men, couldn’t guess what their agenda was, had no reason to believe that the threats against his life were real. Duty argued for staying with the Bean, guarding it, and continuing his mission. But intuition contradicted all of that. Like a thundercloud rising through dust-hazed skies, the worry and misgivings Sulu had felt in his months of traveling the Outland were coming back now to clamor at him. There was something wrong deep in the dusty heart of Llano Verde, a threat so formidable that it could drive men out into a radioactive storm just to contact a stranger. Sulu couldn’t ignore that sign.
So he’d left the Bean behind, with a silent apology to Commander Scott for abandoning his brainchild, and scrambled awkwardly up onto a camel’s back instead, wedging himself into a harness frame clearly meant to carry cargo rather than a human being. The storm wrapped them in a cloak almost as good as a Romulan ship could have generated, so thick that Sulu never did know when they’d left the town behind. All his attention during the trip had focused on the struggle to stay aboard his swaying mount, fighting the unruly wind gusts that threatened to slap him off and the more treacherous ambush of long-delayed sleep. When they’d finally arrived at a far-flung Outland homestead, Sulu had barely stayed awake long enough for a long swallow of water before his constant yawns got him sent to a spare bedroom.
Now, as the red-haired settler guided him down a modular connecting hall to the homestead’s kitchen hub, the two mismatched dogs trotting at their heels, Sulu realized he didn’t know his rescuers’ names. If he’d been told them at any point on the late-night journey, he must have forgotten.
“I’m Hikaru Sulu,” he said by way of introduction as he was ushered into the warmth and surprising bustle of the kitchen. “Lieutenant commander, U.S.S. Enterprise.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Andrew, I think that was your cue to introduce yourself.” Sulu recognized that voice as the one that had shouted at him through the storm in Desperation. Its owner was seated at the kitchen table, stirring large amounts of synthesized sugar into a mug of tea. He had a sturdy build and dark hair, and looked as if the radiation didn’t bother him quite so much as his fair-skinned partner. “I’m Joe Agee, Commander, and your friendly tour guide there is Andrew Bertke. Welcome to our hundred hectares. Hope you like how the dust tastes around here.”
Sulu wasn’t sure if that was a new Outland greeting, or just a private joke between the two settlers. Either way, it didn’t seem to require a response. “Mr. Bertke said there was someone you wanted me to see.”
“Yes, but there’s no big rush. Get yourself some breakfast first.” Agee waved his spoon in the direction of the stove, where covered bamboo racks were steaming in several big woks. On the griddle beside them, fragrant smoke rose from mung-bean and egg pancakes being flipped by a serious young Asian girl. She handed Sulu a plate full of dumplings, steamed buns, and pancakes, while an older sister poured him a cup of tea, smoky and dark as the lapsang souchang he used to buy in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Sulu thanked them both, then lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Agee and Bertke as he sat at the table.
“Neighbors’ daughters,” Agee said in answer to the look. “We asked the Wongs to keep an eye on things yesterday while we came to get you. They decided to stay on and help with all the cooking this morning.” His smile was a little crooked, but looked real enough. “Trust me, you don’t normally get fed this well around here.”
Sulu bit into a bun filled with sweet corn and what he hoped was barbecued guanaco. “Something special’s happening today?”
“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” Bertke said.
Agee snorted and threw the last pieces of his steamed bun to the waiting dogs. “Don’t pay any attention to Andrew, Commander. He’s grumpy because we didn’t bring a spare camel for that fancy tissue regenerator of yours.” His smile got a little more crooked. “We didn’t really believe your friend Uhura when she said she’d bring it.”
“You’re the settlers who talked to Uhura in Big Muddy?”
“Outland Station Six,” Bertke said. “I have to admit, I never really thought you Starfleet geeks would come up with a communicator that worked out here.”
“Is it still working?” Sulu demanded, dropping his fork abruptly. This must be one of the nodes that Uhura had talked about, where her olivium-amplified signal reflected perfectly off the top of the dust layer. “Have you heard someone named Rand hailing us?”
That made both men burst into laughter, contagious enough to draw quiet giggles from their neighbors’ daughters. The two dogs, who had been orbiting around a tug toy like growling binary stars, dropped it and barked in solidarity. “Have we heard her?” Agee said at last, while Bertke was still chortling. “Mr. Sulu, we haven’t heard anything but her for the past twenty-four hours. Just ‘Rand to Sulu, Rand to Uhura’ for hours on end . . . we thought she must have loop-recorded it, except that if we talked back, she was always really there.”
“You’ve talked to Rand, too?”
Agee lifted an eyebrow at him. “Who do you think told us you were in Desperation?”
“Can we hail her now?” Sulu was already on his feet, leaving half his breakfast untouched on his plate. “We’ve got to make sure Big Muddy knows about the flooding—”
“—in No Escape and What’s the Point?” Bertke speared a dumpling with a fork and popped it whole into his mouth, wincing as his scars stretched with the movement. “Rand said they knew about it. The news got sent down by camel express, then confirmed by a subspace message from your starship.”
Sulu sat back down to his breakfast, frowning. “Have they started to evacuate the cities downstream?”
“No, of course not,” Agee said. “Those idiots in Emergency Services are telling everyone there’s only a little water in the streets, and everything else they hear is just a rumor.”
“That’s why Rand keeps hailing you,” Bertke added. “She says Commander Scott and some guy named McElroy are watching some kind of hydraulic network and they think their pressure calibration must be off, because the numbers are coming in a lot higher than they should be.”
“It’s a hydrologic network, and the numbers are probably exactly right,” Sulu said. “No Escape is half under water by now, and What’s the Point’s been completely destroyed.”
“See.” Bertke pointed a fork across the table at his partner. “I told you we should have just said we knew Emergency Services was lying.”
“And why should she believe us?” Agee demanded. “We also told h
er that our fields glowed in the dark, and that Gabby got blown onto the roof by a windstorm.”
“Well, she was on the roof of her doghouse.”
Sulu swallowed one last dumpling and stood again. “Where’s your communicator? Rand will believe what I tell her, and maybe Commander Scott can convince the governor to issue an evacuation order.”
“Maybe cows can graze on dust and squirt out purified olivium,” Bertke said gloomily, but Agee was already up and heading for another hallway. Sulu followed, with Bertke and the dogs trailing behind.
They passed one storeroom where an Asian couple and two younger women were sorting through emergency rations, and another where a dark-haired woman in kevlar chaps and vest was cleaning out dust filters with an industrial-strength vacuum. She turned it off when she saw them long enough to say, “She’s still not awake. I left Keith there so I could get the horses’ dust gear ready to go.”
“Thanks, Heather.” Agee led Sulu farther down the hall, shaking his head as he heard the vacuum turn back on. “Everyone else put their horses in stasis and cloned camels from the DNA bank after the Burn. But the Putirkas came here specifically to raise Arabians. I never thought they’d get them to breathe through a dust mask.”
“Good thing they did,” his partner said. “They’ll be a lot faster at getting the word out about the flood.”
The dogs, trotting ahead now, led them to the end of the modular corridor and into what must have been the homestead’s office. Computers and automated farming controls were stacked against the walls, imprisoned in dustproof cases, and old-fashioned account books and scraps of paper covered the two big desks in their place. But the communicator that sat on one corner was alive with lights and the hissing crackle of an open connection. In fact, that was the only sound coming from it.
“That’s odd,” said Bertke. “Usually you can hear her hailing even out in the hall.”
Sulu told himself that the grinding in his stomach was the result of a hastily gulped breakfast. He took a deep breath and pressed the communicator’s transmission key. “Sulu to Rand. Come in, Rand.”
Silence was all that answered him.
Instinct pulled Chekov off the camel more quickly than he thought he could dismount. He swept the rifle clear of its bindings at the back of the saddle and glanced to see that it was ready to fire as he reached up to pull on Thee’s cloak.
“Bob? Jan?” Her voice ricocheted off the banks of the little valley, frightened and desperate. A dozen meters farther down the slope ahead of them, the dogs turned and stared back at her in alarm.
Chekov clenched his fist in her wrap, suddenly desperate to drag her down out of harm’s way. “Quiet!”
She wrenched herself loose with both hands. “Don’t start ordering me around, mister!” she snarled. “I didn’t—!”
But he had her off the camel and pinned against its bulk before she could do more than swing at him in impotent anger. “You said it yourself—” He leaned in close, the rifle aimed off to one side and his free hand wound in her collar. “This is what I do! I trusted you with the medicine, you have to trust me with this.” He gave her a little shake to make her look straight at him. “Agreed?”
Thee’s dark eyes burned with frustration. But she nodded grudgingly, and he felt her resistence leach away. He let go of her cloak and took a measured step toward the homestead. “We’re going to find out what happened,” he promised, “but you have to stay close to me and be quiet.”
She grabbed at his arm when he would have turned away, pointing at the saddle above him. “If you won’t let me ride up there, don’t leave the puppies up there either.”
Chekov swept the squirming bag over one shoulder, then tucked Thee behind him and took hold of the camel’s reins. He didn’t know how effectively the big creature could shield them from rifle fire, and hoped they wouldn’t have to find out.
They half-slid, half-walked down the incline into the farmyard, braking their momentum to match the camel’s slower gait as much as possible. Wind, already warm and tasting of olivium, finger-painted the air with the stench of aging blood. Chekov swallowed hard against the metallic bitterness it brought into his own mouth, but had no real illusions about clearing it away. He kept his eyes on the ruined homestead as they picked their way through the carcasses, their feet making soft, wet noises in the dirt. The rest of his senses stretched in all directions, straining to split him into pieces in his effort to hear every footstep, smell every windshift, feel the beating of any heart not accounted for within his small group. Whoever had done this hadn’t been gone very long—if they were gone at all. Only the faintest tracery of dust lay over the carcasses, and the blood had barely begun to thicken in the sand. Chekov tried to follow the confusion of human and animal footprints in that ochre mud, but could tell nothing about where the attackers had come from, or where they might have gone, only that enough riders had stormed these grounds to keep the guanacos fairly well confined while they were slaughtered. Or perhaps the raiders had the help of herding dogs. He didn’t mention that possibility to Thee.
Less than ten meters from the blasted homestead, the camel scissored its ears flat against its skull and settled stubbornly onto its knees. Alarm riding up into his throat, Chekov tugged hard on its reins to try and stop it from lying down completely. It rolled him a sinister glower, but otherwise ignored him. Thee took hold of his wrist with a shake of her head. “You’re not going to muscle him into going anywhere,” she whispered. “He won’t fit inside the house anyway. Leave him.”
Those ten completely exposed steps until they reached the door of the homestead took an eternity.
Chekov flattened himself against the frame just to one side of the broken door, carefully balancing the strap on the puppies’ sack across his shoulder so he could hold Thee back with one arm. “You know the people who own this place?” He mouthed the question more than spoke it, but felt her nod against his shoulder. “Call them. Quietly.”
“Jan? Bob?” He could tell from the shuddering breath she heaved that she’d been crying, but he heard no sign of it in her voice. “It’s Gwen.”
Wind moaned through the open door, then turned itself away again. The silence afterward made his teeth hurt.
“Again.” Chekov stepped through to the unlit interior with the rifle leading. Dust lingered on every surface, glittering faintly in the cool inside air. Thee clung close against his back, making the puppies squirm and grunt with discomfort, and called over his shoulder more loudly than before. He waited patiently for an answer he suspected would never come.
Only two rooms let off the central chamber. Every container from the kitchen to the tiny storage hold was smashed and its contents scattered like shrapnel from a bomb blast. Dry rations slithered like ball bearings under their feet, and something pale and powdery stenciled ghostly footprints down the halls, across trampled bedding, on broken doorways and dented bulkheads. Whatever personal items these people owned lay jumbled into a heap, like the foundations of a bonfire, and splashed with what Chekov could only hope was more guanaco blood.
He stopped Thee in the front room, before she could follow him back out into the sun. “Stay in the house—”
“Like hell.” She jerked away from him when he moved to take hold of her elbow. “I’m not letting you leave me in here.”
He gritted his teeth against a frustrated sigh, but backed away with hands clearly making no attempt to restrain her. “Gwen, I’m not going to leave you. But I can’t promise that I can protect you and myself at the same time—”
“Then let me take care of myself.” Fear and grief brightened her eyes to feverish spots in the house’s dimness. “Starfleet taught me how to defend myself.”
But against these kinds of awful weapons? he wondered, acutely aware of the heavy rifle in his hand. Against these kinds of people, who terrorized their fellow colonists and slaughtered defenseless animals just to prove they were able?
As if she could read his thoughts, she trie
d to explain, more evenly, “The people who live here weren’t your friends, they were mine. Don’t try to shield me from what happened to them. You don’t have that right.”
Chekov could have argued that point—security’s entire reason for existence was to protect fellow officers from harm, emotional as well as physical. The fact that she was no longer Starfleet and he was no longer a member of security didn’t lessen that obligation in his mind. Still, if it had been Uhura and Sulu who were missing among all this carnage, he wouldn’t have let anyone, not even Captain Kirk, tell him to sit tight while someone else searched for their bodies. Nodding grimly, he shifted the puppies higher on his shoulder and ushered Thee along with him out into the yard.
With air temperature rising as morning wore on, the ceiling of dust was beginning to crumble, sinking back downward like blood in water. Chekov led them across the open distance to the barn as quickly as possible without slipping in the carpet of gore. It couldn’t have been fast enough. By the time they reached the big double doors, his eyes stung with the stench and his stomach had cramped into a knot of nausea. He didn’t know whether to hope they found nothing inside the barn, or found an answer—no matter how horrible—to their quest, so they could leave this bloodbath and not look back.
He motioned Thee to drag the door aside, and positioned himself to slip through the instant it cracked wide enough. It felt like stepping into a cooler. Sunlight hadn’t touched this darkness since the day before, and it folded in around him like a smothering cloak. He shushed the puppies still hanging down his back, and paused when he felt Thee’s shadow fall over him from behind. “Call them again,” he told her.
Pain smashed through his skull before she said anything, bright as a lightning flash, and he was facedown in the dirt with the rifle skittering away from him. He lunged after it, tangling with himself and the bundle of puppies. Someone cried out, “Bob! Stop it!” even as an awkward kick caught him in the side, and he rolled to avoid another blow with only partial success. Puppies yelped from underneath him, and a more substantial blow to his already bruised breastbone sent him sprawling and gasping for air.