Four

NOTHING.

Nothing from the PDC, the DEF, the Kresh, New Irla, Charest, Colonna, Halo-1, Halo-2, or Halo-3. Nothing from Dirsch, Elson, Egil, Makandros, or any other members of the Council.

Nothing from anywhere in the Denari system or beyond about Enterprise or its crew. It was as if they’d vanished completely.

Trip leaned back from the console and rubbed his eyes. At a guess, he’d just read through over a thousand intercepts-messages the Guild had downloaded and deciphered from traffic across the Denari system, messages between and among the various ships and outposts of Sadir’s government-without finding a thing. It was tedious, mind-numbing, eye-straining work, normally the kind of task he’d set a computer to do and then forget about. But there was no way to program in the search parameters he needed: Would the Denari refer to his ship as Enterprise in their messages? Would they call it the “alien vessel”? The “humans’ ship”? Had they given it a code name in the weeks before the Guild had broken their coding algorithms? There were dozens of possibilities. Dozens of potential ways they could refer to Enterprise’s crew as well. That meant that after the computer eliminated intercepts that clearly had nothing to do with ship or personnel movements-and percentagewise, there weren’t all that many of those, since most of the com traffic they had access to was regarding the newly intensified conflict with the Guild-Trip had to eyeball each message personally. Not easy work in the best of circumstances, which these most definitely were not.

Behind him in the launch bay-in the half that had been converted into a command center for the Guild’s ongoing war effort-he could hear Kairn and one of his officers talking.

“…and no sign of further troop movements. It may be that whatever conflict was brewing has passed.”

“Or it may be about to start. We have no way of knowing.” Kairn’s voice had an edge to it. This last week had been a trying one for the marshal. The failure of Brodesser’s cloak, which had held out such promise. The launching of a major offensive against the Guild’s ships, in and around the asteroid belt the rebel forces called home, had racked up losses the Guild could ill afford.

Two days ago saw the destruction of Shadow-one of only three large warships the Guild had remaining-by Sadir’s elite Planetary Defense Command, the PDC. Three hundred people had perished, including one of the Guild’s leaders, Vice Marshal Ela’jaren.

And now…

From what Trip had overheard during the last few hours, it seemed as if the Guild’s worst fears were coming true.

Members of the planet’s ruling council-Sadir’s most trusted subordinates, generals and leaders of substantial military forces in their own right-were preparing to go to war, to fight for the chance to rule their system. A consequence of the Guild’s failed attempt to kidnap General Sadir, which had resulted in the man’s suicide and left Denari without a leader.

He shook his head. What was his mom always saying-misery loves company?

There was sure more than enough misery to go around on Eclipse right now.

A shadow loomed over him.

“Find anything?”

Trip looked up and saw Lieutenant Royce, Eclipse’s first officer, leaning over him.

“Plenty.” He shook his head and nodded at the screen, which was filled with line after line of text, a list of the forty or fifty most recent intercepts he’d gone through. “None of it about Enterprise, though.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Royce said, sounding anything but. The lieutenant was a tall, thin man who rarely smiled. He rarely showed emotion of any kind, in Trip’s experience-Royce had been on both missions Trip had undertaken for the Guild, Brodesser’s rescue and the aborted kidnap attempt-the farmer with the pitchfork in the Grant Wood painting.

“Fane and her team”-Royce nodded behind him, toward the crowded area where Kairn still stood among a group of computer stations-“have just finished going through another batch of intercepts. I’ll have her relay those to your station.”

Trip sighed. “Thanks. Just what I need, more messages.”

“Take a break.”

“Can’t. You know that.” He met Royce’s gaze. “Though if you want to give me some help, this’d go a lot quicker.”

The first few days combing through these messages, Trip had that help-two crewmen whom Kairn had assigned to assist him-but after the attack on Shadow, the marshal had pulled them away, pleading, a scarcity of resources. He wanted every available body and machine involved in the effort to keep tabs on the hostiles tracking them.

Royce shook his head.

“Sorry, Tucker. I wish we could, but…”

Trip nodded grimly. “I understand.”

“But speaking of help,” Royce went on, “Professor Brodesser feels his work on the cloaking device would also go a lot quicker if he had some. From you, specifically.”

Trip took a second before responding to get the surge of anger he felt under control.

It hadn’t been more than three hours, tops, since he’d told Brodesser he’d think about the man’s request. And the professor was already complaining?

“He told you about that, did he?”

“After I asked what progress he was making.”

“Did he tell you I said I’d consider it?”

“He did. And now I’m asking. Have you considered it?”

“Hoshi and I need that cloaking device.”

“Not until you find Enterprise. In the meantime…”

“Like I said, I’m considering it.”

“Why not let Brodesser at it now, let him find out exactly how it works, then-“

“Because”-Trip got to his feet-“I’m not confident he can put it back together again if he takes it apart.”

“You’re the one who told us he was a genius. You’ve changed your mind?”

“The man I knew was a genius. This Brodesser, in case you’ve forgotten, is not-“

The man I knew, Trip was going to say.

Pain-a crippling, cramping pain-shot up the back of his right leg.

He drew in a breath involuntarily and sat back down.

“Tucker? You all right?”

He managed a nod. “Give me a minute.”

He massaged the back of his calf, trying to ease the pain, aware of Royce standing over him the whole time.

“Should I call Doctor Trant?”

“No. Not necessary.” Trip knew the pain would stop soon enough. He looked up at Royce again.

“What I was saying-I don’t know this Brodesser, and I don’t trust him to pull the cloak apart. Period. You take that back to Kairn, and tell him I said so.”

Royce’s eyes glittered for a second.

“I’ll do that,” he said slowly. “And you do this, Tucker. Remember that Kairn and I haven’t forced you to do anything against your will from the day we rescued you. If you don’t want Brodesser to look at the cloak, he won’t.” He nodded toward the workstation. “Good luck finding your ship,” he said, then spun on his heel and was gone.

Trip almost called out after him, but by the time he’d thought of something to say, the lieutenant was out of earshot.

Terrific, he thought. First Brodesser, now Royce…

I’m making friends everywhere I go today.

His workstation beeped. He turned and saw that a fresh batch of intercepts had arrived at his terminal. Six hundred and twelve of them, to be precise.

All at once, he didn’t feel up to sifting through them. Maybe Royce was right: maybe he did need a break.

And operating on the misery loves company theory…

He decided to visit the one person aboard Eclipse who was possibly even more unhappy than he was at the moment.

 

Trip entered the decontamination chamber and pulled the door shut behind him.

He stripped down to his skivvies, then dropped his uniform and gloves into a nearby receptacle and switched on the UV ray. Filtered light washed over him, eradicating every potential contaminant, germ, and speck of dirt. He put on a clean coverall and opened the inner door.

Hoshi glanced up at his entrance.

She did not look well.

Worse than she had last night, when Trant had drawn blood from her and run a series of tests. Much worse. Her skin had taken on a slightly pale, transparent look that Trip had seen only on the very, very old-or the very, very ill. She looked brittle, as if she might crack at any second. All the weight she’d lost-more than Trip, he guessed, and she had much less to spare to start out with-didn’t help.

Behind her, Trip could see the workstation Kairn’s men had moved in was still dark. It had probably sat all day, unused. Just as Hoshi had-still and silent, in this dimly lit room.

He’d begged the marshal to let him take some of the intercepts from the bay back here, so that Hoshi could help in looking them over. So that she would have something to do. Kairn had turned him down. Prohibitively inefficient to make hard copies, he’d said, and too much effort to run the necessary conduit all the way from the bay to here. And here was where Hoshi had to stay.

Because while Trip could walk freely through the ship-assuming he took a modicum of care to avoid crowded areas like the mess hall and the upper decks-Hoshi’s sensitivities were so acute that even a minute trace of the protein compounds they were allergic to would be enough to send her into anaphylactic shock. She’d almost died once before from such a reaction: she had slipped into a coma that had lasted two full days.

This room was the only place on Eclipse truly safe for her. Eclipse’s crew had converted these quarters into a hermetically sealed environment, with atmosphere and plumbing supplied through specially designed filtration systems. It was a nice room, twice as big as the isolation room in Eclipse’s medical ward.

And for all that, still a prison. Something Trip was conscious of every time he came here. And even more acutely aware of when he left.

“Commander,” she said, looking up. “Any news?”

“Nothing yet. But I’ve got a few hundred more of the day’s intercepts to go through still. We’ll find her, Hoshi.”

She nodded. “I wish I could help.”

There was nothing for Trip to do but nod. “I know. I wish you could too. In the meantime, how about something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. Come on. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“Commander…”

Trip ignored her. Not just as her commanding officer, but her friend, the only one she had on board Eclipse, he felt responsible for making sure that Hoshi kept up her strength…as much as possible.

He walked to the area of the room that had been designated a kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Look at this. A veritable feast. What do you feel like?” he called over his shoulder. “Burgers? Sushi? Fried chicken?”

There was no response.

He turned. Hoshi had a smile-a very faint smile, but a smile nonetheless-on her face.

“Ha, ha,” she said. “Very funny, sir.”

“None of those to your taste?” Trip looked inside the refrigerator again. “How about pizza? I know you like pizza.”

“Sure. That’d be fine.”

“Pizza it is, then.” He pulled a container out of the refrigerator and set it down on the counter. Took down two plates, filled them, and brought them over to the table. Set one down in front of Hoshi, the other at the place opposite hers, and sat.

She looked down at the plate, then back up at him.

“It doesn’t look like pizza.”

“Use your imagination.”

“My imagination is not that vivid.”

Trip glanced down at his plate.

His imagination wasn’t that vivid either.

She sighed. “I just wish there was something else. Anything else.”

“Can’t argue with you there, but…consider the alternatives. What if there wasn’t anything at all we could eat?”

She nodded. “I suppose we should be thankful.”

And then she smiled.

“What?”

“Turo. That’s what he said. Always remember to be thankful.”

“Who’s Turo?”

“A man I knew, back on Earth.”

“Turo?” Trip frowned. “What kind of name is that?”

“He was Huantamos. Their chief, in fact.”

“I hate to sound stupid, but…Huantamos?”

Hoshi nodded. “An Indian tribe, down in the Amazon basin. I met him while I was working for a private foundation down there, helping catalog the languages of some of the more remote peoples.”

“Really? I didn’t know about that.” Which wasn’t that surprising-there was a lot he didn’t know about Hoshi.

“I spent six months with them.” She picked up her spoon and stared into the polished surface for a moment before continuing. “The Huantamos live in the densest part of the rain forest. They live off the land in the same way they’ve been doing the last thousand years. They want no contact with the outside world-at all.”

“So how could you learn their language?”

She smiled again. “Believe me, it wasn’t easy. Just getting to them, I had to walk kilometers with nothing but the clothes on my back. Even then, it took a long time to convince them to let me stay. Convince them that all I wanted was to learn their language, and then leave.”

Trip nodded. Walking into the middle of the rain forest with nothing but the clothes she wore-that took some guts. Some survival skills as well, no doubt. Maybe he’d been underestimating Hoshi just a little bit these past couple years.

“They took you in, though?”

“Eventually. That was a whole…” She shook her head. “…mess, is what it was. The brujeira-tribe’s witch doctor is the closest approximation to his title-didn’t want me there. He thought my learning the language and taking it away was like stealing. Turo had to…convince him otherwise.”

The stress she put on the word “convince” gave Trip the feeling that argument had progressed beyond talking into a confrontation a shade more…primitive, for lack of a better word.

“Anyway,” Hoshi said, suddenly setting down her spoon, “my point is, we always ate meals-the dinner meal, at least-together. Some nights there wouldn’t be much more than this for everyone.” She nodded to the pisarko. “Before every meal, though, Turo always offered a prayer. Reminded us to be thankful for what we had.”

“The Huantamos version of ‘grace.’ “

“Exactly,” she nodded.

“My sister and I used to say grace, too.” The memory made him smile.

“That’s funny?”

“The way we did it, yeah.”

Hoshi leaned forward expectantly. “Which was…?”

Trip cleared his throat. “Good food, good meat. Good God, let’s eat.”

For a second, the expression on her face didn’t change.

And then Hoshi giggled.

“Oh. That is funny,” she said, and giggled again. “Good meat.”

The way she said those last two wordsTrip snorted and burst into full-out laughter. Hoshi joined in at once, covering her mouth for a second to try and stop herself before giving in wholeheartedly.

It had to be a good ten seconds before they stopped.

“Oh.” Hoshi said, smiling and shaking her head. “Commander, I-“

“Yeah.” He smiled too. “It feels good to do that.”

“Yes.” She nodded.

Trip chuckled. “Oh yes.” He looked her in the eye. “Good God, yes.”

The “yes” came out as more of an exhalation than anything else, because Trip had already started laughing again.

Hoshi was laughing even harder. She grabbed her stomach and bent over, her shoulders shaking.

Even after Trip composed himself, her shoulders were still shaking.

Trip didn’t know exactly how long it took for him to realize that at some point, her laughter had turned into tears.

“Hey. Hoshi, come on.” She didn’t react. He leaned forward and put a hand on her arm. “It’s all right. We’re gonna be-“

She sat up so suddenly Trip started.

“No!” she said, her voice harsh. “It’s not all right, sir. It’s not all right at all. I’m sick of this. Sick of feeling tired all the time. Sick of being stuck in this room. I’m sick of feeling useless, and more than anything else I am sick to death of this god-damn food!”

She shoved the bowl of pisarko away from her. It flew off the table and smacked into the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.

Hoshi looked at the mess-shards of the plate, clumps of pisarko all mixed together-and suddenly stopped crying. Her eyes widened in horror.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said softly.

“Yeah. I know.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Hoshi.” He looked her in the eye. “Like I said, it’s all right. Or it will be, anyway. We’ll find Enterprise.”

“Yes, sir.” She smiled ruefully. “Good thing it was just a plate.”

“Good thing.” He nodded.

She sighed, wiped away another tear, and bent to begin picking up the shards.

Trip bent down to help her, mentally adding another item to the “things he didn’t know about Hoshi” list: under the right conditions, she had a powerful temper.

The door to the decontamination chamber opened again.

Doctor Trant stepped through. Neesa.

Trip looked at her and smiled.

She wore the same green-and-orange Guild uniform as Trip and Hoshi. Her gaze traveled from Trip to Hoshi to the mess on the floor and then back to him.

“Everything all right?” she asked, in such a way that Trip knew she had to have heard something of their previous conversation-Hoshi’s rant, most likely.

“Everything’s fine,” Trip said. “Just an accident.”

“My fault,” Hoshi said, kneeling down on the floor. She reached for the shattered pieces of the plate. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Don’t,” Trant interrupted forcefully. “Leave those.”

Hoshi looked up.

“Sharp edges. Last thing we need right now is for you to cut yourself, Hoshi,” Trant said in a very reasonable tone. “I’ll clean it up.”

“I’m not a child,” Hoshi snapped. “I’ll be careful.”

“It’s not a question of being careful. Accidents happen.”

“Doctor-“

“No,” Trant said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Hoshi didn’t argue.

But she didn’t stop what she was doing either.

Piece by piece, scrap by scrap, she picked up the plate and the pisarko and threw them in the trash. Trant fumed.

Hoshi stood next to the bin defiantly when she’d finished.

“That was very foolish,” Trant said.

“Maybe.”

“No maybes about it.” She turned to Trip. “You said ‘early afternoon.’ It’s dinnertime.”

He smacked himself on the forehead. The medical ward.

“I’m sorry. I forgot completely.”

“What’s the matter?” Hoshi asked.

“Commander Tucker was going to come by so I could run a few more tests.”

“But we just did tests. Last night.”

“The results were…at odds with what I expected to find. On both of you.” Trant frowned. “In fact, as long as I’m here, I’d like to take a little more blood from you, Hoshi. Just to have a point of comparison.”

Hoshi sighed, and seemed to deflate. All at once, she looked completely done in.

“Doctor,” Trip said gently, “why don’t you start with me now, and do Hoshi later? How would that be?”

Please, he added silently.

Trant caught the message in his eyes. “I suppose. But you’re not interchangeable. So first thing after dinner, I’ll be back. All right, Hoshi?”

“That’s fine. Thank you, Doctor,” Hoshi replied. Her eyes thanked Trip as well.

“Not a problem.” He got to his feet. “Come on, Doc. Let’s get this over with.”

“Trip…”

Trant shook her head and pointed to the plateful of pisarko he’d left on the table.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he mumbled, and sat back down.

Trant got out another plate and filled it for Hoshi. She pulled out a chair and joined them.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

Trip smiled.

Hoshi smiled.

They burst out laughing again.

 

“At least someone around here’s in a good mood.”

Trant had waited until they’d passed through the decontamination chamber before speaking.

“Not exactly a good mood,” Trip replied. “More like a desperate one.” He ran down Hoshi’s litany of complaints for the doctor. “The one about feeling useless, that’s the big one, I think. At least before, when we thought that contacting Starfleet might make a difference, she had something to do. Now…”

Neesa nodded thoughtfully. “You’ll have to find something else to keep her occupied.”

“Something meaningful,” Trip said.

“That she can do alone, in her cabin, without extended periods of contact with any of the crew.”

“Needlepoint, maybe.” He smiled and shook his head. His momma had done needlepoint almost every night after supper.

Trant looked puzzled.

“It’s a hobby. Like making…” He thought, “…art.”

“Is Hoshi an artist?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Neesa said.

“I’m drawing a blank right now.”

They walked on.

“These tests you want to run again,” Trip said. “What are they?”

“Body chemistry studies.”

“You weren’t happy with the last round?”

“No.”

“Why? What did they say?”

“Nothing that made sense,” she told him. “That’s why I want to run them again.”

“Come on, Neesa. What did they say?”

She paused a moment before answering.

“The tests indicated that the rate of mineral depletion…is occurring faster than I had originally predicted. Much faster.”

“Which means-“

“The trace minerals that your body needs to function optimally are at very low levels in your system. Somehow, they’re being-well, for lack of a better word, leeched out.”

Leeched. Trip shuddered involuntarily at the images the word brought up.

“It may be,” Trant continued, “that there are compounds in the pisarko responsible for this process. That’s one of the reasons I want to run the tests again-to see exactly what’s happening. Also to make sure that the results I got last time were correct.”

Trip frowned. “Same basic results in me and Hoshi, though?”

“That’s right.”

“So what are the odds that both sets of tests are wrong?”

He saw the answer to that in her eyes before she spoke.

“Not high, but still…it’s worth eliminating that possibility. Before we have to do more expansive testing.”

Trip sighed. He was getting almost as sick as Hoshi of being a guinea pig.

Trant put a hand on his shoulder.

“Trip, these tests won’t take long, I promise. And we need to do them-there may be some things we can do to head off the symptoms.”

“Symptoms like what?”

“Dizziness, fainting, unexplained cramping, feelings of weakness-“

He nodded. “Something I should have told you about before, I suppose,” he said hesitantly, and then filled her in on the pains he’d experienced the previous night.

Trant was quiet after he’d finished.

“Well. It seems that those results may have been correct after all. Though another round of tests still might-“

“No.” Trip stopped walking. “I don’t think we really need another round. Do you?”

She sighed, and nodded reluctantly. “No, I suppose not. There’s no news about your ship, I take it?”

“No.”

“There’s time,” she said, and started walking again. “Even with this, there’s time. I’ll let Kairn know. He may be able to shift more personnel to the decoding stations. Your ship is out there, it’s just a matter of-“

“Neesa.” Trip hadn’t moved a muscle, was still standing in the exact same spot where he’d stopped. She hadn’t noticed.

She turned now to face him.

“How much time?” he asked. “How much time do Hoshi and I have?”

“That’s hard to say. There are a lot of factors involved.”

“When we first found out about all this, you said months.”

“I know.”

“We’re not talking about months anymore though, are we?”

She shook her head. “No. Certainly not for Hoshi. For you…if these test results are right…if the rate of depletion continues to accelerate…if-“

“Neesa.”

She looked up at him.

“Just tell me.”

She shut her eyes a second, and shook her head.

“Six weeks,” she said, sighing again. “That’s the high end. A month, on the other side, if-“

Trip held up a hand. He didn’t want to hear the rest.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “A month.”

Thirty days, more or less. Long before then, of course, he’d be bedridden. Incapable of getting to Enterprise even if they found it. And what was true for him would no doubt be true for the rest of the crew. In a month, they’d all be dead.

“Trip”-Trant took one of his hands and squeezed it between hers-“we’re going to find your ship. I know it.”

But suddenly, despite his own words of encouragement to Hoshi earlier, he wasn’t so sure. All this time, all those intercepts sorted through, and they still didn’t have a clue. And now, for all intents and purposes, the amount of time they had left could be measured in days.

They had to do something.

And all at once, it was crystal clear to him exactly what that something was.

“Hoshi and I have to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we have to go. Get in the cell-ship, and find Enterprise ourselves.”

Trant blinked.

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Go where? You don’t have a clue where to start looking. And those aches you’re feeling now, those cramps? They’re only going to get worse. Exponentially worse.”

“I believe you,” he said.

She shook her head. “You can’t fly in that kind of pain.”

“That’s why there’s an autopilot.”

“Trip, be serious. What if you get sick? What if Hoshi gets sicker? How can you expect to take care of her if you’re incapacitated?”

“We’ll find a way. We’ll have to.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re the doctor-help us.”

“I want to help. Assisted suicide is not my idea of help.”

“I seem to recall you passing out poison pills not too long ago.”

She frowned. “That was different.”

“No, that was exactly the same. You wanted me to have those pills in case I got caught by Sadir’s people, so I’d have a chance to die on my own terms.” He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “That’s all I plan on doing. Giving myself that same chance.”

She shook her head. “But you don’t have to make that choice just yet. There are still things-“

“Neesa,” he cut her off, “that’s wrong. I have to make the choice now. While I still can.”

“What about Hoshi? You’re going to make that decision for her too?”

“No. I’ll give her the choice.” He nodded down the corridor, back the way they’d come. “But I think I know what she’ll say.”

Neesa stared into his eyes a moment without responding.

A Guild crewman wandered past. He looked at them curiously before continuing on his way. Trip would normally have pulled his hands away from her shoulders, made it look like they were just friends talking, but right at the moment he didn’t care about all that.

“I’ll tell Kairn you’re too sick to go. That you’re irrational. That-“

“He wouldn’t believe it. And even if he would…” Trip shook his head. “You’d never do that.”

She lowered her gaze.

“No, I wouldn’t. Trip…”

“Neesa.” He touched her cheek gently and tilted her head toward his. “Try and understand.”

“I do understand. I’m just not happy, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well…neither am I.” Not about leaving her, anyway. He was just the opposite, in fact. Miserable.

All at once, that old saying popped into his head again, and he smiled.

“What?”

He told her.

She sighed. “I suppose that’s true. I could certainly use some company now.”

“That sounds like an invitation.”

She nodded.

“As long as we’re not going to the ward,” Trip said, “I’m your man.”

“For one more night,” she said, managing a smile.

Trip nodded. “One more night.”

They joined hands and headed off down the corridor.