STAR TREK: The Lost Era - 2298 - The Sundered Read online

  The Hopi geneticist crossed to the director immediately. Zafirah, feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the moment, walked over to Mizuki a few seconds later.

  But hard-eyed McNolan, seated at a console beside the apprehensive-looking Baruch, didn’t move.

  Mizuki frowned. “You have objections?”

  Baruch spoke up when McNolan hesitated. “In a word ... yes.”

  “Fear is what plunged mankind back into the Stone [86] Age,” the director said, extending her arms as if to embrace the entire universe. “We ought not repeat that mistake out here.”

  McNolan finally broke his silence. “Why haven’t they hailed us?”

  “They may have been sending us friendship messages for the past hour,” Mizuki pointed out, referring to the balky high-gain antennas which remained in disrepair. During the past several weeks, simple survival had taken precedence over trying to send messages that Earth couldn’t possibly receive for a score of decades. “We have no way of being sure.”

  “That’s precisely my point,” McNolan said. “Their intentions are a mystery.”

  “Any civilization capable of traversing interstellar space has to be peaceful by definition,” said the director, adopting the didactic classroom-lecturer tone she preferred over confrontation.

  “Assuming that they think in a way we can even understand,” Baruch said, casting a glance toward Zafirah. “Remember, most human cultures have always had a hell of a time understanding how other human cultures think. Never mind aliens.”

  Baruch’s glance reminded Zafirah of frightened young Israeli soldiers with quivering trigger fingers. And her own desperate, demoralized cousins who had for decades counterattacked indiscriminately by strapping bombs to their bodies. Justifiable fear had motivated both sides. Those recollections made her wonder whether Baruch and McNolan might not be equally justified in their wariness.

  “And that’s what’s kept our species trapped on Earth for so long,” Hakidonmuya told Baruch. She gestured toward the image of the just-landed alien vessel. “Less enlightened beings are almost certain to destroy themselves before they figure out how to handle the energy sources interstellar travel requires.”

  [87] The director walked toward the door, followed by Hakidonmuya. Zafirah fell into step behind the geneticist.

  “Are you coming, Kerwin?” Mizuki said, pausing in the open hatchway.

  McNolan rose slowly. “All right. But at least let me take a few simple precautions.”

  “Precautions?”

  “We need to have some weapons handy. Just in case our visitors turn out not to be friendly.”

  “What weapons?” Zafirah asked. Vanguard wasn’t exactly a military installation, after all.

  “Some of the rock-boring and digging equipment will do in a pinch,” McNolan said. “And a few of the construction beamjacks even have target pistols. It’ll only take a few minutes to get them ready.”

  Zafirah got the distinct impression that this was because McNolan had already made a few surreptitious calls; he’d probably gotten started the moment the alien ship had been identified as an alien ship.

  The director’s mouth became a grim slash. “Absolutely not.”

  McNolan approached her. “Director, a smile and a few kilos of mining explosives will always get you a lot farther than just the smile.”

  He was not smiling, however. His eyes remained hard, his resolve clearly immovable.

  “Amen,” said Baruch.

  After a seeming eternity, the director averted her gaze from Baruch. She looked about the room to measure the opinions of everyone present. The dozen people in the room seemed split down the middle on the issue.

  Then Mizuki trained her probing gaze squarely on Zafirah. “And where do you stand, Zaf?”

  Zafirah swallowed hard. Visions of rock-hurling teens and suicide bombers flashed across her mind’s eye. She knew in [88] her heart that distrust was not a productive path to follow. But as she tried to tame her own mounting fear, she found it nearly irresistible. Allah forgive me. Did you not create these alien visitors as well as us?

  “I think Kerwin and Avi have a point,” she said finally. “Maybe we should consider keeping some armed people behind the welcoming party. Discreetly.”

  “ ‘Trust, but with verification,’ ” Baruch said, no doubt quoting some ancient Cold Warrior from the previous century.

  Norman Arce, the construction foreman, was studying the image of the alien ship displayed on the monitor. Bright lights flashed intermittently between the vessel’s hull and the asteroid’s nickel-iron-marbled surface. “Better make a decision soon. They’re cutting a doorway.”

  Dr. Mizuki sighed, then nodded her grudging consent to McNolan’s proposal. As she followed Claudia and the director into the corridor, Zafirah felt relief that pragmatic realpolitik was evidently as important to the director’s job as was raw idealism.

  But her fear remained, to her enormous shame.

  The alien boarding party consisted of four creatures whose robust-looking sidearms and long, sheathed knives were immediately apparent. Zafirah’s heart pounded; she hoped that the visitors’ open display of weaponry signaled mere caution rather than naked aggression.

  Zafirah stood beside Mizuki, Hakidonmuya, and McNolan on the rough metal surface of Vanguard’s lowest, highest-gravity level. The members of the welcoming committee were empty-handed, with the exception of McNolan, who carried a small, unobtrusive radio transceiver that he’d left patched into the main control center.

  All of their eyes were trained on the aliens who strode purposefully toward them. The hole through which the visitors had gained ingress was visible some twenty meters [89] behind them. The lack of so much as a breeze indicated that they had done Vanguard’s residents the courtesy of installing an airlock of some kind on their way in.

  They’re not monsters, Zafirah told herself silently and repeatedly. Just like the Israeli soldiers, they were merely the products of a different culture.

  As well as, obviously, a different biology. Although the quartet of creatures provided living proof that the general humaniform template was not unique—each of the newcomers possessed two arms, two legs, and a head that harbored something roughly analogous to a face—they were clearly like nothing human beings had ever before encountered. They were all large, broad across the shoulders, and perhaps two-and-a-half meters in height. Their hair was shaggy and black, and hung past their bulky shoulders in untidy mullets that were adorned with bushy topknots and uneven, dreadlocklike braids. Their garments were motley and loose-fitting, predominantly blousy shirts, baggy jackets, and pantaloonlike leg coverings that brought to mind the pirates of the Barbary Coast, or her own people’s legends of djinn.

  But it was the aliens’ faces that Zafirah found to be their most arresting feature. Their skin was dusky, their eyes obscured by multiple folds of wrinkled flesh. Nose and mouth converged in a single, snoutlike projection, bordered by a sharp chaos of sharp tusks and fangs.

  They’re not monsters, inshallah.

  When only a handful of meters lay between the two groups of sentients, the visitors came to a halt.

  The being at the front of the group raised a single meaty hand. “Be’huh laku fraken Nausicaa,” it said, its voice deep and booming. Zafirah wondered if it was identifying itself, or its species, or its intentions.

  We’ll find a way to speak to them, Zafirah told herself. These creatures have had to contend with the same laws of [90] physics we do just to get so far out into space. We have at least that much in common already.

  The lead alien tipped its head, apparently expecting a response. Zafirah recalled the sixteenth-century Spanish explorers who had read proclamations to the indigenous people of the Americas, then slaughtered them when they failed to make a satisfactory reply.

  But they’re not humans, Zafirah thought, hoping that the director’s instincts would win out over McNolan’s. They won’t necessarily behave the way we humans have always behaved.
>
  Director Mizuki spread her hands in a gesture of peace. She stepped forward, and away from the rest of the group, closing the distance between herself and the alien leader to a gap of about a meter.

  Zafirah suddenly realized she was holding her breath.

  “I am Kuniko Mizuki,” the director said. “I am in charge of this facility. It is my honor to welcome you to the Vanguard colony.”

  The director bowed respectfully.

  The alien before her bellowed, “Kak Nausicaa!” In a blur of motion, it unsheathed a long, evil-looking serrated blade.

  Almost too quickly to see, the blade rose, then swept across the back of the director’s still-bowed head.

  A scream escaped from Zafirah before she could find the will to squelch it.

  “No!” Hakidonmuya shouted.

  McNolan cursed, then barked a single terse order into his handheld transceiver unit.

  The director’s head fell from her body, landing on the rough-hewn rock-and-metal floor with a sickening wet crunch. Frozen across her broad features was an expression of pure, unadulterated surprise.

  PART 3

  SECRETS

  Chapter 9

  Damn it! Sulu thought, instantly on his feet and moving toward the wounded Tholian ambassador. The pungent odor of sulfur permeated the conference room, as did a gabble of shouting human voices.

  None of the Tholians uttered a sound.

  Smoke and other superheated gases quickly roiled through the room, making the air uncomfortably hot. The sounds of coughing filled the air as an alarm shrilled. His eyes already stinging, Sulu drew and held a deep breath of what he hoped was clear air; it was already redolent with the acrid stench of rotten eggs. He heard the roar of the emergency fans as the environmental system struggled to get the room’s atmosphere back into class-M equilibrium. The smoke and vapor swiftly began to recede.

  Kasrene’s aide, Mosrene, had already backed away from the evidence of his dirty work—he had apparently applied some sort of crude patch to the rent in Kasrene’s enviro-suit, no doubt for the benefit of the humans present—and made no further threatening moves toward his superior. The remaining three members of the Tholian diplomatic party took up similar poses at Mosrene’s side, all of them behaving as though they had just witnessed a genteel debate rather than an act of possibly mortal violence.

  [94] Why aren’t any of them trying to help Kasrene?

  Looking through the faceplate of Ambassador Kasrene’s suit, Sulu tried to interpret the emotions on the Tholian diplomat’s rigid, unreadable crystalline features. Was she surprised? The burnished red-and-gold planes of her countenance revealed nothing he understood.

  Though the moment seemed frozen in time, Sulu and Chekov both arrived at Kasrene’s side almost immediately. They simultaneously caught her heavy body as it began collapsing deckward, the haft of Mosrene’s whisker-thin blade still protruding from the front of her suit. Taking care not to let the blade touch him—the weapon had just cut through the heavy, durable fabric as though it were whipped butter—Sulu strained against Kasrene’s great weight, which felt like a tumbling neutronium wall.

  “Clear the room!” Sulu roared as he struggled. “Security!”

  “I need a trauma team in conference room four!” Chapel was shouting into a communicator. “And get me some help from that Tholian ship.”

  Chekov was already frantically patching into Excelsior’s communications system to alert Yilskene’s nearby flagship that a Tholian doctor was needed urgently.

  Where’s Akaar? Sulu thought. The giant Capellan could probably have lifted Kasrene with a single steel-muscled arm. But a glance over his shoulder confirmed that the security chief was busy fulfilling his primary duty—maintaining order among both the Tholian and Federation delegations. He was directing two small teams of lightly armed security guards as they escorted both groups out of the conference room and into the corridor. Sulu presumed they were being ushered back to their respective quarters until things settled down, but at the moment he didn’t much care.

  Aidan Burgess, however, wasn’t going quietly. Clearly determined to reach the fallen Tholian’s side, she all but dared an owl-eyed young security guard to either stand aside or [95] shoot her. She instantly ran afoul of Akaar, who draped a heavy arm across her shoulder. Sulu might have enjoyed the sight of the Federation special envoy being lifted and carried away like a sack of quadrotriticale were he not still in danger of becoming pinned beneath an enormous heap of living—or perhaps dying—crystal.

  Two more pairs of hands grabbed at the wounded alien’s suit, making Kasrene’s mass suddenly far more manageable. With the help of Tuvok and Chapel, Sulu and Chekov carefully lowered Kasrene into what appeared to be a sitting position, balancing her on her long, wide tail. The rotten-egg aromas evidently still issuing from Kasrene’s suit were becoming almost overpowering.

  Dr. Chapel was already running her medical tricorder over the Tholian’s wounds, her face pinched in concentration.

  Sulu eyed the weapon that remained lodged in Kasrene’s thorax. Monomolecular blade, he thought with an inward shudder, glad he’d never faced anything like it in the fencing lanes. Very nasty piece of work, that.

  “How bad?” he asked.

  “Looks about as bad as it can get,” Chapel said, kneeling beside Kasrene and coughing because of the effluvium escaping from the Tholian’s compromised and imperfectly patched suit. Improvising with a protoplaser, she sealed the breach, thereby preventing the fumes from overcoming every oxygen-breather in the room.

  Chapel looked up and gazed significantly at Sulu. “I’m really going to need a Tholian doctor.”

  Sulu turned to Chekov, who shook his head. “When I explained to Yilskene’s watch officer that this was Mosrene’s doing, he said ‘the castes must look after their own.’ Then he cut off the channel.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Chapel said. “Then I’m going to need to get her to sickbay, so I can cut off this suit and work on her through an environment forcefield.”

  [96] “Where’s that trauma team?” Chekov wanted to know.

  At that moment, a trio of med techs rushed into the conference room, a large antigrav stretcher floating between them. Tuvok assisted the medics in hoisting the Tholian’s still form onto the hovering platform, which bobbed and oscillated momentarily as it adjusted to the ambassador’s considerable mass. Kasrene was placed awkwardly on her side, to prevent the still dangerous blade from causing any further injury, either to the ambassador or to the medical personnel.

  Akaar and a pair of security guards returned to the conference room then, and the security chief ordered his people to clear a “fast crash-cart route” to sickbay. Holding a phaser, the Capellan looked ready to vaporize anything that got in the trauma team’s way. Sulu guessed that it must have been difficult for Akaar to restrain himself from shooting Mosrene down in his tracks. Aware that the father Akaar had never met had been murdered during a political coup, Sulu knew that the young officer had little love for would-be assassins.

  Just as the med techs began moving Kasrene toward the door, one of the ambassador’s gauntlet-clad hands shot out. Before anyone could react, she seized Tuvok’s right wrist in an iron grip.

  “Vulcan,” Kasrene said, the chorus of layered voices that formed her translated words now sounding jangled and discordant. “Vulcan. Mind-toucher. Think to you. Touch. Touch.”

  Tuvok froze, his expression even more blank and unreadable than usual.

  “Save your strength, Ambassador,” Chapel said.

  The Tholian’s grip appeared to tighten. Tuvok suddenly looked pained.

  “Let him go, Ambassador,” Sulu said. “We can’t help you if you fight us.”

  “Dying,” she said. “Vulcan. Is. Only. Help.”

  The Tholian’s grip suddenly relaxed.

  [97] His face blank once again, Tuvok collapsed, prompting Sulu to dive to catch him before his head hit the deck.

  “Bring him along, too,�
�� Chapel said, indicating Tuvok.

  Sulu nodded, hoisting the young Vulcan to his feet. Tuvok remained limp as Sulu and Chekov each took one of his arms and bore him quickly through the corridor behind Kasrene’s swiftly-moving stretcher.

  “What’s happened to him?” Chekov asked as the group rushed into a wide turbolift.

  “Sickbay,” Chapel told the computer before turning to face Chekov. “I don’t know. Maybe he inhaled too much of the leakage from Kasrene’s suit.”

  Sulu knew that Chapel was making a purely off-the-cuff guess, since she was preoccupied with her struggle—apparently a losing one—to keep the Tholian ambassador alive.

  Still helping Chekov hold Tuvok’s slack form, Sulu listened to the Vulcan’s breathing. It didn’t sound labored, though it was slightly shallow. It seemed unlikely that the hot gases from Kasrene’s suit had seared his lungs.

  And yet Tuvok’s open eyes were vacant and glassy, staring off into infinity as though they’d been exposed to something no humanoid had ever seen before.

  “Circulatory pressure is crashing, Doctor,” one of the med techs laboring over Kasrene said. “She’s flat-lining.”

  “I can read the tricorder, Ensign,” Chapel snapped as the turbolift deposited them across the corridor from sickbay. Everyone dashed through the main doors and into a corner in which the medics quickly improvised a Tholian-compatible isolation chamber. Reaching through the forcefield boundary with a pair of medical waldoes, Chapel wasted no time using a laser scalpel to slice open Kasrene’s suit.

  Even to Sulu’s untrained eye, Kasrene’s seeping chest wound appeared mortal. The blood—if indeed that word could be used to describe the escaping viscous fluid—appeared to be a brilliant, shimmering turquoise in color, at [98] least as seen through the dimness and distortion of the isolation forcefield and the class-N atmosphere that lay behind it.

  Mosrene obviously didn’t want Kasrene to tell us whatever it was she was about to tell us. What is he trying to hide? Sulu recalled some of Kasrene’s last words before she had fallen unconscious. Vulcan, she had said. Mind-toucher.