Spirit Walk, Book Two

by Christie Golden

  He fell hard to his knees. If a second before he had been master of matter and time, now he was their slave; he was no longer outside the boundaries of physics. Through suddenly blurred vision he saw Katal strike Kaz, hard. The doctor fell to the floor as Katal scrambled up from the pile of debris and fled. Even as Black Jaguar leaped to block his path, she disappeared. He couldn’t focus enough to keep her here, Chakotay realized.

  This is your enemy, Chakotay thought to the colonists even as his eyes closed. The Changeling ordered these things done to you. Do what you will with him. The last thing he saw was the creatures that Katal had ordered brought into being running down the corridor, eager to exact revenge.

  How could it all have crumbled to pieces like this?

  The Changeling ran with all his might, cursing his limited abilities that now, perhaps, would never evolve. If he could turn into a bird, or a long-legged jatham, he might escape. But the things he had ordered Moset to make, the things that he had thought would be his new army, were turning on him, and they were fast.

  He heard their gibbering howls. They were getting closer. Panic closed in on him, lending him fresh speed. The exit was just up ahead, through that door—

  He slammed his shoulder into the door, bursting through. No time to close and lock it behind him, only time to run across the grassy field into the small vessel, leap into it—

  The door shut behind him as they tumbled out of the earth, red-brown furry things that were all teeth and claws and hatred. Frantically the Changeling punched in the commands as they threw their hairy bodies against the unyielding metal. He glanced up to see one of them plastered to the viewscreen, clawing futilely, trying to rip his face off through the transparent barrier.

  He was safe, and he allowed himself a grin. “Hang on, if you like!” he shouted at the creature. “Going to be quite the ride!”

  Chapter 23

  FOR THE SECOND TIME in three hours, Kaz awoke to pain. Hissing, he sat up and gingerly touched the knot on his head. His hand came away covered with blood, but he knew he was all right for the time being.

  Beside him on the debris-littered floor of the lab lay Chakotay. Kaz glanced around for a medical tricorder. There was none to be found; everything in the lab had been smashed. He felt for a pulse; solid and strong. No immediate injuries. With luck, Chakotay would recover.

  He looked around for Moset, who had fallen in the first few moments of the fight. But at some point the Cardassian had obviously recovered and fled.

  Go after him, Gradak urged. And Kaz wanted to, badly. But his first duty was to his patients. He suddenly remembered something that had happened in the heat of the fray and stumbled to his feet.

  “Oh, Sekaya…” Kaz said softly.

  Sekaya lay on the bed, her eyes still shut. Several enormous slashes lacerated her abdomen. She had never regained consciousness.

  Sekaya frowned, vague discontent creeping into her awareness even as she leaned against the warmth of Blue Water Dreamer.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said, although it still felt as though everything was perfect with the universe. Reluctantly she lifted her head and saw with a shock that the cord had disappeared.

  She bolted upright, crying, “Chakotay!”

  Blue Water Dreamer’s hand on her shoulder tried to soothe her. “He is fine,” her beloved said. “Chakotay has returned to his body. He will be tired, but he will be all right.”

  Sekaya turned to stare at him, and then dawning realization swept over her. “If we are no longer connected by the cord,” she said slowly, “and he’s all right,…that means that I’m…”

  “Dead, as you understand the word,” said Blue Water Dreamer with infinite tenderness. He stroked her cheek. “That’s why I came for you. I wanted to be the one to be with you. So that you wouldn’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Sekaya replied, and realized with mild surprise that she spoke the truth. But there was a strange resistance.

  He rose and extended a hand to help her up. “Look there,” he said, pointing to the north. “See the pine forest? That’s the barrier, according to the traditions of the Lakota. That’s the Land North Beyond the Pines.”

  He turned to her and his heart was in his eyes. She felt herself tremble. “Come with me, Sekaya, my Sky. Walk along the Star Road with me. You’ll still be able to visit Chakotay from time to time, when he needs you. Every time he looks at the stars, he’ll see those of us walking the Star Road.”

  It sounded so beautiful, so perfect. And yet, she hesitated. Seeing her doubt, Blue Water Dreamer said quietly, “I came to you first in your spirit walk, when you wanted to know if you should reveal everything to Chakotay. I came to you a second time in your dream, where you relived our first kiss.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “And now I come to you a third time. Among our people, if one who has passed into the Land North Beyond the Pines appears three times to someone still living, that person must come back with him.”

  Again Sekaya looked toward the waiting Land, and knew what she needed to do.

  “I am not of your tribe, Blue Water Dreamer,” she said.

  He laughed softly, so close that his breath stirred her hair. “That ever was the problem between us, Sky.”

  She let him fold her close, hugging him in return.

  “When the true time comes…will you come for me?”

  “Of course I will, if you want me to.”

  Sekaya closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of him. “Then I will never be afraid to die.”

  At last he let her go and stepped back. Spreading his fingers, he gently placed them on her belly.

  “Here is where the wound is,” Blue Water Dreamer said. “I will hold it so that you suffer no more harm, until your doctor can heal you himself.”

  Sorrowfully Kaz went to the body of the beautiful young woman. He pressed his fingers to her throat, confirming what his eyes told him: There was no heartbeat. Sekaya was dead.

  As he regarded the body, something seemed…off about it. When he realized what it was, he was utterly confused. The blood should have spilled all over the place. Instead, it never seemed to have flowed at all. Again he leaned beside Sekaya and touched the blood; it was warm and wet, but somehow it wasn’t flowing—

  As if time were standing still.

  No, more like…somehow, Sekaya was outside of time.

  His scientific brain raged against what he beheld, but he shoved the complete impossibility of it all aside. He had a chance to save Sekaya, and it didn’t matter one damn bit if he understood how.

  He touched his combadge.

  The away team’s experience had taken on the quality of a nightmare. Firing at the creatures who kept charging, slogging through mud, turning shoulders to the winds, and pushing steadily forward. And forward to where? The storms continued to wreak havoc with their sensors. At one point Paris waved to Kaylar, and she nodded, understanding his command. She turned and began to lead them to the settlement.

  All of a sudden, as if someone had touched a control pad, the brutal storms stopped.

  Tom removed his helmet just in time to see the clouds turn from blackish gray to white and fluffy, and then zip away altogether. A bright, cheerful sun now beamed down on them from a blue sky.

  “What just happened?” Niemann said, voicing the question everyone was thinking. The rest of them began to remove their helmets.

  And then Tom was suddenly hit with a very strong sensation that everything was going to be all right. It was as if someone had touched his brain and said so in as many words. He knew it in his bones, knew past all logic and understanding. The joy that washed through him was so powerful he stumbled. Grinning like an idiot, he looked around at his team.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said as they stared at him. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  At that moment his combadge chirped.

  “Kaz to Voyager and any away teams. Requesting emergency medical beam out now.”

  Kim met
them in sickbay. “What happened? Are they okay?”

  Kaz threw him a brief glance. “I don’t know and I can’t talk. Out of my sickbay now.”

  Kim seemed a bit taken aback, but Paris nodded. “Come on, Harry,” he said. “Let’s give the doctors some room.”

  As they went to the bridge, Tom filled Harry in. “I didn’t get a lot out of Kaz, he wants to operate immediately, of course. But I did get a few things. You remember that hologram of a Cardassian scientist the Doc created when B’Elanna was attached to that thing?”

  “The mass murderer?”

  “Crell Moset. The Butcher of Bajor, they called him,” Tom affirmed. “Turns out he was working with the Changeling. Kaz didn’t give me all the details, but once we learn everything, it’s going to be a hell of a story.”

  “Wow,” said Kim. “But I notice that you haven’t come back with a shape-shifter.”

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “He was able to escape. Had a cloaked ship and apparently made it out just in time—his own creations were hard on his heels, Kaz said.”

  “That’s too bad,” Harry said. “He’s not someone I want running around loose in this quadrant.”

  “Well, at least he’s not our problem anymore. Moset escaped as well—I guess they left together. Kaz said there are some people still in stasis down there. I’ll take a team and get them back.”

  “What about the colonists?”

  “We’re to beam them up and hold them until the think tank can figure out how to change them back.”

  “You think they can?”

  Tom shrugged. “They’ve got Seven and the Doctor working on it. What do you think?”

  For the first time in a long while, Harry Kim laughed.

  Kaz was glad that they were gone, not just because he certainly didn’t need any distractions right now, but because he wasn’t sure he wanted them to see what he saw.

  “Computer, activate EMH,” he snapped as he ran his hands under sanitizing light and gathered his tools.

  “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” said the slim, elegant holodoctor.

  “Check him out, then assist me in surgery,” Kaz told him. The hologram tended swiftly and efficiently to Chakotay while Kaz frantically worked on Sekaya.

  It was the strangest surgery he had performed in his entire life. Sekaya seemed to be frozen in time, the damage that ought to have inevitably killed her halted so that he could repair it before the body could react. He thought he’d have one hell of a paper to present on the power of mind over body when this was all done.

  He didn’t know how long…whatever was happening would continue to happen, so he worked quickly. At one point the EMH stepped quietly in to assist him.

  At last they were done. Kaz stepped back and then wondered what he should do next. He glanced over at Chakotay.

  “How’s he doing?” Kaz asked the EMH.

  “Better than well,” said the hologram in a puzzled tone of voice. “He’s in perfect health. Better than he was when you performed his physical. I can’t explain it, Doctor.”

  “Don’t try,” Kaz said, “just accept.”

  Following a hunch, he turned back to Sekaya and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

  “Sekaya,” he said softly, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s all right now. You’re healed. Your body’s whole, it’s safe to return to it. You can let go now.”

  Nothing. Then, suddenly, Sekaya’s chest heaved as she took in air. Her pulse began to beat and her brain waves to register again. Quickly Kaz glanced at her vital signs and shook his head. Just like her brother, Sekaya was completely healthy.

  “Kim to Kaz.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Paris has returned to the planet and has prepared the stasis chambers for transport.”

  “Excellent. Beam them directly here. I’ll revive them once we’ve finished surgery.”

  The EMH looked at him quizzically, but Kaz shook his head and put his finger to his lips. “When will we be leaving Loran II?” Kaz asked.

  “I’ll send an away team down in the morning to conduct a final investigation on Moset’s lab. We’ll have to see if we can find anything useful, anything that might help the colonists.”

  “Good idea,” said Kaz. “It’s late and we’ve all been through a lot.”

  “My thoughts exactly. How is the surgery coming?”

  “Well, but I need to get back to it.”

  “Of course. Kim out.”

  “Doctor, why did you lie to Lieutenant Kim?” the EMH asked.

  “Long story,” Kaz said, realizing he had already chosen his path. He had fulfilled his obligations. Everyone in his charge was safe now. It was time to fulfill another obligation, one from years past.

  “I’m going to keep you activated in case anything goes wrong,” he told the EMH. “There will be four stasis chambers materializing here momentarily. Everyone will be all right until I return.”

  “Where are you going, Doctor?” the EMH inquired.

  Over his shoulder Kaz replied, “To tie up some loose ends.”

  Kaz sat alone in the dark, in the wreckage of the laboratory. He was exhausted, but he was not about to let physical weariness stand in the way of what he was planning to do.

  The driving need to get Chakotay and Sekaya proper medical attention had outstripped all others, but now that need had been met. Both were safe. He could return before the away team beamed down in the morning, and do what he had come to do.

  Moset wasn’t gone, and Kaz knew it.

  It was easy for Paris to leap to the conclusion that the two former allies had escaped together, and Kaz had opted not to disabuse the lieutenant commander of the notion. The Changeling—Katal—might have had the good luck to evade the wrath of his own creations and flee in a cloaked vessel, but Moset would hardly be welcome on that ship after turning on his partner. And Moset would want to get to the creatures before Voyager did, in order to continue his work.

  Kaz was surprised at how calm he was. His heart wasn’t racing, his palms weren’t wet; he was focused and intent.

  He stayed that way for a long time, the phaser that Katal had dropped held in his hand. How long, he didn’t know; time had no meaning here. Only revenge had meaning.

  He heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall; slow, careful. Cautious. Wary of a trap.

  Kaz closed his eyes and saw himself by the ocean again.

  “So here we are,” Gradak said.

  “Yes,” Jarem Kaz replied. “Here we are.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Jarem regarded Gradak evenly. “Because you lost your wife to Moset, and your people to Katal. And neither of them is going to pay the price they should.”

  “You sure about this?”

  Jarem nodded. “I’ve never been more certain about anything. This is for you to do.”

  Kaz’s eyes snapped open. And Gradak Kaz saw out of them.

  A faint light, bobbing in the darkness. The crunching sounds of glass under feet. The light shone about, narrowly missing the corner in which Gradak Kaz crouched, ready to spring.

  A sigh. “What a mess. Lights,” called Crell Moset.

  Kaz leaped. It was pathetically easy, almost an anticlimax after the years of dreaming of this, both as a living being and as a collection of memories contained in a symbiont. Moset was a scientist, not trained in combat, and he went down far too easily for the moment to be satisfying.

  “Dr. Kaz,” he gasped.

  “Not Doctor,” Gradak hissed, his face within a centimeter of the alarmed Cardassian’s. He pressed the coolness of the phaser to Moset’s throat. “Gradak Kaz.”

  “I—I’m sorry, I don’t recognize that name.” The Butcher’s voice had crawled higher in fear. It was sweet to hear.

  “Of course you don’t,” drawled Gradak. “Nor would you know the name Vallia Kaz. Bajoran. Beautiful. Dead.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Moset.

  “Yes, now you’re starting to un
derstand,” Gradak said. He ran the muzzle of the phaser along the curves of the Butcher’s brow ridges, along the thick tendons that stood out from his neck. Almost a lover’s touch. And indeed, there was rapture and delight for Kaz in the gesture. He was enjoying this with a savage pleasure that thrilled him.

  “You experimented on Vallia, and killed her. You killed hundreds. There’s a reason you were dubbed the Butcher of Bajor.”

  “It was necessary for my research,” Moset began. “Research that would benefit millions.”

  Gradak uttered a blistering oath and shoved the phaser under Moset’s chin and tightened his finger. Moset whimpered—actually whimpered—like an animal.

  “The thing that makes this frustrating,” said Kaz in an almost conversational tone, “is that you really believe that. You don’t exult in your evil. You hang on to this ludicrous notion that somehow what you did was all right. That the end truly justified the means. That finding a cure for a disease made it all right to murder hundreds in the attempt. That turning innocent people into monsters and foisting powers onto them that they couldn’t possibly handle was a good thing. You wanted your own little group of sycophants, didn’t you?”

  “No! I wanted to show that we can change, can evolve—”

  “You named the littlest one after your father, Moset. The most malleable, the most impressionable, the easiest to teach to love you. What do you think that means?”

  “I—I—”

  “You’re not stupid, I’ll give you that, but you are blind. Can’t you see? You can’t change how history will judge you!” He was screaming now, spittle flying off his lips to splatter in Moset’s face. “You can’t make it all right! But on some level you know what you’ve done, and that’s why you’re so hungry for acceptance and approval. You know you’ve committed atrocities and you want to atone, but you won’t really let yourself see it. So around and around you go, Moset, like a dog chasing its tail, craving a pat on the head, but until you can really comprehend what you’ve done you can’t do anything but go in circles.”