by Mosaic
"Agreed, Ensign. It may be that the location of the final site is hidden, protected in some way in order to provide a defense against defiling or looting."
Harry looked around. No clues presented themselves. The green slime of the ground was unmarked; the flora dense and solid. It was as though the trail simply ended. And yet he knew there must be more. The trail had been so clear, so explicit.
And then the thought struck him, like a spoken voice in his mind: "For anyone on the ground. his
The trail could be followed by anyone on the ground. But these were beings capable of flight. The markers of the final location might be visible only from the air.
"I've got it, sir," he said excitedly. "There must be a pattern that can be seen from the air, not the ground."
Tuvok understood immediately. "That would be logical, Ensign. Proceed with that hypothesis."
"I'm going to enter the coordinates of every marker we've encountered. The tricorder will able to extrapolate an aerial view."
Excited now, he plunged into the overgrown thatch of the vegetation that surrounded them.
Jal Sittik emerged from the Kazon shuttle and moved eagerly into the hot sunlight.
Today would be the day he would achieve greatness. He took a deep breath, drawing warm air into his lungs, feeling them expand and imagining they were drawing power into his body--power that would, on this day, cause him to achieve a great triumph: victory over the puny Federations.
Jal Sittik put his hands on his hips and faced into the sun, filling his lungs with strength, summoning his virility so that his men could look on him and derive strength from him, and bless their good fortune in being part of his great destiny.
He knew that he struck a fine figure for his men to witness. The adornments in his hair were impressive: for each of his kills, he had woven a Behrni stone into a lock of hair. By now, his head was crowned with a mass of the veined green stones. After today, there would be more. He thought of the glory that would soon be his as his eyes scanned the strange, alien landscape. His Maje would reward him handsomely. He would sit at the right side of his leader, whispering into his ear, counseling him on matters of battle and intrigue. Other men would envy him, jealous of his strength and courage, and would urge their sons to emulate him. And, finally, he would erase the humiliating-and completely unwarranted-stigma that had attached itself to him following an ugly little encounter with the Nistrim. Memory of the incident still burned within him, like a burning coal that retains heat, able to sear flesh for hours. How could he be faulted because a young man took foolish risks in order to earn a name? He was a warrior, not a nursemaid. And if young Hekkar chose to make what amounted to a suicide run on a Nistrim encampment, how could Jal Sittik be held responsible?
Maje Dut, however, saw the incident differently. Sittik had been severely treated, held in chains for two weeks; the wounds to his wrists and ankles were just healing, and he would carry the scars forever. Proudly, of course.
He was certain some members of his squad had given the Maje a flawed report of the incident. Miskk, for one, could be counted on to color the story so that Sittik would emerge in the worst possible light. Miskk was a sycophant, shamelessly willing to exploit the fact that young Hekkar was the Maje's nephew and that his death would understandably leave the irascible Dut in a vengeful fury. Miskk would learn that betraying Jal Sittik was a grievous mistake.
For today he would erase the memory of that prior mishap and replace it with triumph. Maje Dut would embrace him once more. Women would ache for his recognition. They would parade before him, dressed in provocative gowns, oiling and scenting themselves in their efforts to arouse him, desperate to be chosen by Jal Sittik.
But he would take his time. He would drive them into a frenzy of display by not responding to them. He would toy with them, pretending disdain, until they went to greater and greater lengths to capture his attention.
By the time he made his selection, there would be nothing the chosen woman would not do for him.
Sittik surveyed his men. They were edgy and keen for battle; he had whipped them to a furor of blood lust, and they were eager to enjoin the enemy. Several were young men who had not yet earned their names; they were particularly eager to distinguish themselves, preferably through killing their adversaries with their bare hands.
Power rippled through his veins; he could feel it, a palpable energy that was both mastery and desire. Erotic stirrings coalesced with the anticipation of combat, a potent narcotic that made him heady with anticipation.
"Today!" he shouted to his men, a promise of victory, and was rewarded with their resounding war cry. Was there anything more glorious, he wondered, than the comradeship of fellow warriors at the moment of battle? Then he struck out across the overgrown terrain, confident and eager.
Neelix had been successful in discovering any number of edible plants-tubers, fruits, and vegetables-that could be harvested and that showed no toxicity after tricorder scans. There was an entire grove of a spicy red fruit that was shaped like a sphere, had a pleasant, crunchy texture, and appeared abundant in nutritional elements. The grove was deep and thick, the gnarled trunks and thick leafy canopy shutting out almost all light. Nate LeFevre stood next to him, peering into the gloom. "The fruit might not be good in there," the rangy, redheaded crewman said. "No light's getting in. I doubt the fruit would ripen."
"No matter," replied Neelix. "We'll harvest what we can from the periphery, then move into the interior. If the fruit's no good, we don't have to pick it."
"I'd like to get as much as we can," proffered LeFevre. "That's the best food I've eaten in a long time."
Neelix sniffed. He couldn't understand the culinary preferences of humans. Leola root, prized everywhere as a rare delicacy, went unappreciated by Voyager's crew. And this new fruit, while perfectly acceptable, seemed ordinary to Neelix. There was no accounting for taste. The group of ten had seemingly gotten over their initial disappointment in not going with the archaeological group, and were collecting the foodstuffs earnestly, talking and laughing with irrepressible good spirits. Greta Kale was energetic and good-humored; she set a standard for the others, and Neelix was grateful for her presence.
He was scanning the fruit grove aimlessly, wondering if there was any purpose in moving into its dark depths, when he noticed something disconcerting. On the tricorder there were ever-so-faint but unmistakable life signs emanating from within the grove-an animal species, from first indications. They might be harmless, but it was one more argument against venturing into the dark and foreboding forest. He turned to tell the others to start collecting the fruit when he detected yet another life-sign reading-this one far more disturbing. Ile hit his commbadge.
"Neelix to Tuvok."
"I'm here, Neelix."
"I'm reading humanoids on the planet. A sizable group, no more than two kilometers from here, and moving toward us."
"I read them, also."
"Perhaps we should return to Voyager to be on the safe side."
"That would be the prudent course. But we have lost communication with the ship."
This was disquieting. Was there damage to the comm system? Or did the humanoid presence on the planet indicate that Voyager was under attack? Neelix hoped Tuvok had been thinking of the problem and already had a plan in mind. He was not disappointed.
"Mr. Neelix, do you have a fix on our location? I believe we should unite our groups."
"I have your coordinates, but we'll be taking an indirect route. A direct line to you would take us through a thick grove of trees I'd prefer not to wade through."
"Understood. Bring your group around it."
And that's what Neelix intended to do. But almost as soon as the group had been collected and given their orders, that possibility was snatched from them. Ensign Kale moved toward him, freckles standing out on her pale face. "Mr. Neelix, my readings show that if we move in an easterly direction around the trees, we'll run into a deep ravine. It'd be pretty toug
h to get across-maybe impossible. If we go in a westerly direction we'd be moving directly into the path of the humanoids."
Hesitating before making a decision, Neelix scanned in the direction of the humanoids once more, didn't like what he saw, and checked his readings again. Now the life signs could be read clearly: they were Kazon, and they were moving quickly. Neelix stared into the tenebrous depths of the copse of trees, ominous and foreboding. He pointed. "This way," he said, and instantly trotted into the murky, tangled corridor of trees before he could think better of it.
CHAPTER 6
KATHRYN RACED THROUGH THE HERB FIELDS, HEART POUNDING and lungs burning. How could she have lost track of the time? One minute the morning had been fresh and cool, sun low in the sky and dew still clinging to the herb gardens. What seemed like minutes later the sun was overhead and beating mercilessly down; hours had gone by and now she had only minutes to get ready and meet the team at the transport site. She clutched the padd in her hand as she ran. That's what had betrayed her, of course. She'd gone out to her favorite study spot, a hilly knoll between herb fields, with a willow tree that cast delicate shadows on the ground below. Kathryn had climbed the tree several years ago, when she was nine, and discovered a comfortable "chair" of tree limbs, against which she could sprawl comfortably and read, study, or just daydream. She loved the tree. If she was troubled, she came to it. If she was faced with a problem, an hour in the tree frequently provided the solution. If she faced a difficult test in school, the leafy bough of the tree provided a tranquillity that cleared the mind and made study efficiently easy.
She'd come there early this morning because she was determined to understand the derivation of the distance formula. She was convinced that if she did, Daddy would be so proud of her that he'd spend more time at home, more time with her, the way he used to when she was little. She didn't know what had happened lately, why Daddy had to be away from home so much. It used to be that he would transport to Starfleet Headquarters once or twice a week, staying at home the rest of the time to work. But something was going on; she had sensed it about a year ago, when Daddy began to transport to San Francisco almost every day. Occasionally she heard him talking with Mommy, and she had heard him mention a species called Cardassians. And when he talked about them, he seemed very worried. He began staying in San Francisco for days at a time, then weeks at a time. It had been a month since she'd seen him, but he was going to be back tonight. She desperately wanted to show him she could derive the distance formula, and watch his face light up as he realized what she'd been able to do.
Finding the numerical value of the distance between two points was simple, of course: just plug the Cartesian coordinates of the two points into the padd and it would give you the distance.
The hard part was to find the formula that would apply to any pair of coordinates. That was the kind of thinking Daddy expected of her. But in spite of hours of working the problem, coming at it from every angle she could think of, the solution remained elusive. And then she looked up and realized how late it was.
She burst onto the patio of her house, right by a startled Mom and Phoebe, and past Bramble, who rose immediately to run after her, through the door and into the breakfast room, down the hall to her room. She slammed the door open and began stripping off her clothes, reaching at the same time for the uniform on her bed. Haste made her hands clumsy, and she stamped her feet in frustration; under her breath she said one of the words that weren't supposed to be said except at times of great distress. Pants were on, then shirt and jacket, shoes. She glanced in the mirror and saw that she looked frazzled and unkempt. There was no time to do anything with her hair, so she ran her fingers through the fine, reddish brown locks and watched them lie limp on her head, damp from perspiration. Habit made her reach for the cylinder of sun protector; she tapped the lever that opened the dispenser at the top of the cylinder- comand screamed as something leapt out of the cylinder, something long and serpentine, springing up and at her in an explosion of energy. Her heart raced in shock and her stomach knotted as she stumbled backward, tumbling back and catching herself awkwardly on one wrist. And then she heard Phoebe giggling.
She looked and saw her eight-year-old sister standing in the doorway, hands cupped over her mouth, unable to choke back the giggles that erupted from her. Kathryn stared at her, then looked over to see the thing that had erupted from the cylinder. It was a long coil of polymer that had been jammed down into the container of sun protector-the one thing Phoebe knew she would never leave for a game without using. She stared at her sister, trying to understand this cruel betrayal.
"It isn't funny!" she yelled. But that only made Phoebe laugh harder. Kathryn turned and grabbed her bag, brushed past her sister at the door, and ran outside toward her hovercycle. She had only minutes to get to the school transport site; she was frantic, unprepared, and furious. And in that state she would have to function as captain of her tennis team.
Kathryn and her team materialized on the transport pad of the Academy Institute's athletic department. Like all the Institute's facilities, the transporter site was sleek and pristine, a cool, blue-gray room, spare and unadorned. An Institute cadet manned the console, and like all the others, she was (it seemed to Kathryn) faintly condescending. Kathryn had wanted to attend the Institute. Each state had such a school geared for a pre-Starfleet Academy curriculum, and created to channel the best and the brightest right to San Francisco. Kathryn could easily have qualified, but her parents had instead chosen The Meadows for her and Phoebe. They believed the Institute provided too narrow a curriculum for young people, and preferred the more liberal, wide-ranging philosophy of The Meadows, which emphasized creative experiences and physical conditioning along with academics. Its goal was to produced well-rounded young people, rather than superstars of select disciplines. Kathryn would have been much happier at the Institute. She wouldn't have had to take such pointless, traditional studies as piano, ballet, and cooking. Cooking, for heaven's sake! Who would ever need to know how to cook? She could have concentrated on mathematics instead. She and her six teammates stepped off the pad; the uniformed, female cadet barely inclined her head toward them. Students from The Meadows were considered somewhat odd, generally undisciplined, and most definitely inferior. Kathryn made an inner decision to return to the transport site victorious, and make sure the condescending cadet knew it.
The seven team members carried their tennis bags toward the Institute's beautifully landscaped courts. The school was an immaculately groomed facility, with rich green lawns and precisely planted shrubbery surrounding low, sleek classrooms. Kathryn always felt ambivalent about being on the grounds; on the one hand she loved the ordered neatness of the place and felt comfortable thereas though she belonged-but this was offset by resentment that she wasn't a permanent student there, and had to endure the cluttered atmosphere of The Meadows, whose sprawling grounds lacked both symmetry and organization.
Heat waves rose from the ground, and billowing white clouds hung heavily in the sky. The air was damp and close; it would rain before nightfall. These weren't optimum conditions for playing a grueling tennis match, and Kathryn had no doubt that today's would be grueling.
She had played her rival before. Her name was Shalarik, a Vulcan exchange student whose imperturbable demeanor on the court was unsettling. But she was attackable, and if she was broken early, her tightly controlled emo- tions became an obstacle, because she was unable to use her feelings to generate momentum.
Kathryn's advantages lay in her head. She could analyze an opponent's game with mathematical precision, then devise countermeasures to thwart and frustrate the adversary on the other side of the net. That tactical capacity was what had made tennis tolerable, and gradually turned it into a challenge that she had determined to conquer. Her backhand was the first stroke to solidify, and it became a formidable weapon. She loved the feel of it, the coiling of her body, knees bent deeply, the drive forward as she uncoiled and whacked the stuffing out
of the ball. It gave her an intoxicating sense of power. Two years later, she was captain of the team.
Strategy was key today. If she could keep pressure on Shalarik, hitting deep to the baseline, punishing her with the powerful backhand, trying to force a short ball so she could come to the net, she could win. And at least she would greet Daddy tonight with a victory to report.
Four hours later she was crawling through a muddy field, sobbing uncontrollably, soaked to the skin from a pounding thunderstorm. Wind whipped at her, driving stinging rain into her face, and her throat ached from the harsh sobs that racked her.
It had been humiliating.
From the beginning of her match, nothing had gone right. She was unfocused and erratic. Her stamina was low (probably as a result of her two-mile run through the herb fields) and she tired early. Shalarik's controlled, precise shots were unerring: she kept Kathryn off balance all afternoon. No strategy Kathryn tried was successful, and the Vulcan broke her serve immediately and then just kept winning.
Kathryn won only one game in the entire match, which ended 6-1, 6-0. Her loss allowed the Institute team to win the match and the season. She had let everybody down.