Star Trek - Gateways 7 - WHAT LAY BEYOND
STAR TREK -
GATEWAYS
WHAT LAY BEYOND (various Authors)
******
Contents
-Star Trek "One Giant Leap" by Susan Wright
-Star Trek Challenger "Exodus" by Diane Carey
-Star Trek Deep Space Nine "Horn and Ivory" by Keith R.A.
DeCandido
-Star Trek Voyager "In the Queue" by Christie Golden
-Star Trek New Frontier "Death After Life" by Peter David
-Star Trek The Next Generation "The Other Side" by Robert
Greenberger
******
STAR TREK
ONE GIANT LEAP
Susan Wright
Chapter 1
Captain Kirk was suspended in the gateway, floating between the
countless dimensions. The interstellar transport lasted for only a
few seconds, but the flashing light seemed to freeze every thought
and feeling he had. Then he was falling out the other side, rolling
to his feet and unsteady on the soft surface. He was standing on
the edge of a small platform, suspended near the top of a giant
crevice. The sheer parallel cliffs extended for miles to either
side.
Holding his arms out for balance, Kirk could only look down. The
cliffs descended out of sight. The bottom was obscured by mist or
smoke that was rising, softening the sharp edges of the cliffs. The
rocks on both sides looked as if huge sections often sheared off
and fell forever into the center of the planet. Backing away from
the edge, Kirk looked around and saw the two Kalandans. "Tasm!
Stop!"
Commander Tasm was on the other side of the platform, trying to
wrest away the large cylindrical unit from her errant officer, Luz.
The blue neutronium cylinder was the key component of the gateway,
and they were waving it around between them at the edge of an
abyss!
Kirk briefly considered stunning them, but they were too close to
the edge and he was afraid they would be knocked over by the
impact. So he ran forward and grabbed Tasm around the waist,
pulling her away. Luz hung on to the cylinder and came with
her.
The soft ground gave Kirk plenty of traction, and he was able to
drag both women closer to the wall of the cliff. There was an
arched doorway there leading to a tunnel. Apparently that was the
way off the platform.
Tasm struggled against him, but Kirk took hold of the cylinder with
one hand, expertly twisting it away from her. The Kalandans were
thin and frail even if they were tall.
But Luz hung on, kicking at him and jerking on the cylinder as if
she were crazed. It swung wide and hit Tasm in the head, driving
her down to the ground with an agonized cry. The commander rocked
crouching on her knees, her head in her hands.
Glaring at him, Luz managed to push Kirk closer to the sheer drop.
The streaks of green and blue on her eyelids suddenly looked right.
He hadn't seen such a display of outright passion from any of the
Kalandans.
"It's mine!" Luz screamed. "Let go!"
Kirk stayed calm. "Stop fighting me or we're both going
over."
In response, she swiped a leg at him, catching him behind the knee.
Kirk stumbled, and her momentum carried her forward, taking him
right to the edge of the platform. Kirk wasn't letting go of the
cylinder. He meant it - if he went over, then he was taking her
with him. Their brief struggle showed that she didn't know anything
about hand-to-hand combat. But she fought in a frenzy, nearly
knocking him off the platform.
Kirk got his feet under him and spun away from her, hack toward the
doorway in the cliff. As she fell back, he grabbed hold of her
wrist. She tried to wrench it away from him, but he twisted her arm
down, forcing her to take one hand off the cylinder.
With a quick turn, he stepped behind her, bringing her arm behind
her back. Now that he had leverage on her, he had the advantage.
She didn't have enough brute power to shake him off.
He jerked the cylinder from her grasp and bent her arm up until she
went to her knees. Her cry didn't stop him. He hung on to her long
enough to make her realize there was no way she could win in a
fight. "Had enough?"
Panting, she continued to struggle to get away from him. But she
knew she couldn't beat him.
Finally Kirk let go, pushing her away to roll on the ground next to
Tasm. Tasm was still on her knees, groaning from her head injury.
Her eyes were bleary as she tried to focus on him.
Kirk pulled his phaser from his belt and trained it on them so they
didn't get any more ideas. Then he quickly assessed his situation.
They were standing on a platform hardly six meters square. But what
he had mistaken for soft sand was really some kind of plush rubbery
material that coated the rock.
He took a few steps inside the tunnel, getting a better took at the
thick beige stuff. It ran up the sides, covering it completely.
Farther in, the tunnel ended. When he poked at the stuff, it felt
like a dense block of suede.
Back outside, Kirk looked in both directions up and down the
crevice. He had seen two metal-plated buildings on top of the
cliffs before jumping through the gateway. Now he had to strain to
see them. They were much farther up on the opposite side. The sun
in the orange sky was so bright it made it hard to focus on the
dull metal.
One look at the cliff behind him, and he knew it couldn't have been
a tougher climbing challenge. Kirk was willing to bet he could make
it with hands and feet alone, with the gateway cylinder strapped to
his back by his uniform jacket. But that was his last
resort.
Still holding the phaser on the two women, Kirk demanded, "Where
are we?"
Tasm was moaning and clutching her head, so he jerked his phaser at
Luz. "You brought us here. What is this place?"
Luz's lips drew back from her teeth, a desperate expression. 'This
is our birthing world."
"You aren't Kalandans."
"We're Petraw!" she spit at him. "You're such fools! Such trusting
fools ..."
Tasm was struggling to stand up. "Silence, Luz! You've betrayed
your pod - "
"I saved the interstellar transporter!" Luz let out a high-pitched
shriek, rushing at Tasm.
With surprise on her side, Luz managed to shove Tasm toward the
edge. Tasm fell flat to stop herself from going over. Luz sat on
top of her, grabbing her around the throat, screaming
inarticulately.
"You never learn, do you?" Kirk dropped the cylinder to go to
Tasm's defense, but he wasn't exactly willing to risk his own life
for her. Aiming his phaser, he hesitated as they rolled over, Tasm
on top, then on the bottom again.
Before he could fire, he was surrounded by people. Hands grabbed
his arms and took away his phaser. They were rough, their manner
abrupt. It was like they appeared out of nowhere.
Kirk stopped struggling immediately. When they realized he was
giving them no trouble, they let his arms free so he could stand
among them. He couldn't see what had happened to his phaser, but it
was gone.
They separated Tasm and Luz, taking them to opposite sides of the
platform. Kirk counted eight humanoids crowded onto the platform,
dressed alike in whitish-transparent bags complete with enclosed
hands and feet. The loose hoods over their heads slid
forward.
Kirk settled his uniform, reaching down for the cylinder. But one
of the strange people picked it up first.
Kirk had to look up to see his face. It was like melted wax, with
his nose, eyes, and chin softened and flattened.
"I'm James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise." Kirk pointed to the
cylinder, holding out his hand. "I believe that belongs to
me."
Luz cried out, stumbling forward. Kirk couldn't understand what she
was saying, something about completing an engagement... Tasm was
speaking to others, still holding one hand to her injured head.
Clearly these were her people.
The androgynous Petraw held up the cylinder. "This is for the
matriarchs to deal with."
"Are those your superiors?" Kirk asked. Getting an affirmative in
response, he agreed, "Lead the way." He was more than ready to talk
to someone in charge. Tasm had clearly lied to him about
everything.
Tasm and Luz were herded into the tunnel behind him. It had somehow
become unclogged and continued much deeper inside the cliff. It
curved ahead, so he could only see a short way, and the top was
within reach of his hand. It was cramped, but better than climbing
that towering cliff freehand.
Kirk could hardly see a thing. There was no obvious light source,
but the pliable material covering the walls was so pale it seemed
to glow like amber under a light.
It wasn't long before the tunnel ended in a slightly more bulbous
section. Straight ahead were six hexagonal openings stacked three
across and two high. Each opening was about a meter wide.
"In there." The Petraw holding the cylinder gestured to the first
hexagonal opening on the bottom.
Kirk peered in, but he couldn't see out the other side. "This is
the way to the matriarchs?"
Several of the Petraw crowded close to him, trying to push him
inside. Their baggy coveralls rustled as he resisted.
"What's the rush?" Kirk tried to regain his footing on the mushy
floor.
They still nudged him forward, pressing down on his shoulders. He
realized he was being given no choice and he began to fight
back.
Without hesitation, the Petraw seized his legs and arms, subduing
him by sheer numbers. Before he knew it, they were tossing him into
the hexagon.
They slapped something on the end. Kirk scrabbled at it with his
fingers. The covering was hard and peach-colored, almost opaque. He
could see the shadows of the Petraw outside, but even when he
kicked hard against it with both feet, he couldn't budge the seal
on the end.
After a while Kirk couldn't see any more shadows. It was pitch dark
inside. He kept kicking against the plug, but it held firm. He
crawled to the other end, checking it for openings, but it was
sealed tight as well. He was trapped.
It didn't take long to search the place. Kirk could sit up inside
the cell if he hunched over, his hair brushing the ceiling. He
could also lie down and stretch out to his full length, but both
ends touched his feet and outstretched arms. It was a tiny,
claustrophobic place. A sarcophagus buried in the rock.
He wasn't sure where the fresh air was coming from. Feeling around,
he found nothing but smooth, slightly damp walls that were cool to
the touch. Too bad his phaser was gone. But they hadn't taken his
communicator.
Operating the communicator by touch, Kirk checked each frequency,
listening for activity. There might be a Starfleet vessel in the
area, or an allied planet that had diplomatic ties to the
Federation.
"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. Can
anyone read me? I'm being held prisoner. ..."
He repeated his distress call on every frequency. If the Petraw
didn't like it, they could come stop him.
But there was no response. The static was extremely high, crackling
on the lower frequencies, leading him to believe that a shield
could be interfering with the sub-space channel.
Kirk grimly kept trying.
His voice was raw from speaking into the communicator when he
finally gave up. No one could hear his calls.
A different course of action was required. Kirk flipped the cover
up and felt the screen mesh. No sharp edges on it or on the smooth
black body of the unit. He tried wrenching the cover from the
communicator, straining with both hands to twist it out of its
hinge.
The mesh cracked at one corner, breaking free and leaving a jagged
edge. He winced when it cut his probing finger. The other corner
slid out of the hinge.
Kirk dug the broken cover into the seal on the end of the cell. It
reacted like some kind of polymer. The jagged edge left a small
slice in the flexible stuff.
He hacked away at the seal. The polymer wouldn't tear, but
successive jabs cut deeper into it.
Satisfied that he was finally making some progress, he worked
faster.
It took a while for Kirk to break through. At first only one hand
could push out of the cell. He continued to dig at the polymer to
enlarge the slash.
Getting his shoulders through was the hardest. He struggled with
the polymer as if the cell were alive and determined to keep him
inside. When he finally slid through, dragging his legs after him,
he rolled onto the soft ground.
Only to find himself trapped again. The tunnel was exactly the same
as before, nearly dark with no way to get out. But the Petraw were
gone.
Kirk carefully retraced their steps, and found the tunnel once more
clogged at the end with a dense mass of tan polymer. But now he
knew that it could be opened.
He plunged his hands into the center, feeling them sink deeper and
deeper. It was powdery dry. The stretchy texture reminded him of
the thick rubber bands he had used as a kid for makeshift
slingshots. He pushed harder on it.
The walls slowly started drawing back, opening up to reveal the
platform where the gateway had deposited him. It was darker outside
now, and Kirk went forward to see the blood orange sky looming over
the parallel cliffs. It was densely spangled with bright white
stars. Everything inside the crevice was ruddy, including the
cliffs and the tunnel.
The Petraw could have taken a transport from the platform up to
those metallic structures. But why did Luz bring them here instead
of directly to the top? The last thing she had expected was for
Kirk and Tasm to come along with her.
Kirk crouched down and went right to the edge of the platform to
look over again. The crack seemed to descend forever, cleft deep
into the planet. It was completely dark down there, and would
likely be even in the brightest daylight. Plus there was that odd
smoky mist. It didn't look very inviting.
No, the answer must lay inside the tunnel.
Kirk went back inside, returning to the six hexagon
cells.
He didn't have much time before the tunnel began to close behind
him, shutting out most of the light. But he searched the walls
quickly, pushing and poking, trying to find another place where the
polymer would open up.
Right next to the cells, his hands sank into the wall. Kirk leaned
in, pushing his arms into the center. The barrier began to give
way, irising into an opening tall enough for him to step through.
It was not much brighter inside this tunnel, with the ambient light
coming from a warm glow within the walls themselves.
The tunnel finally widened as it ended in a cross-tunnel. This
passageway was apparently well trodden, with the tan polymer floor
roughened and pitted by use.
Going down this tunnel, Kirk paused to listen to the echo of odd
mechanical noises. Light slanted out of a doorway ahead. Edging
closer, he could see a brightly lit, cavernous space filled with
various large pieces of equipment. They were interconnected by
ductwork and conduit junctions. The walls and floor were bare rock
rather than being covered by the beige polymer.
A shadow crossed the doorway as several Petraw approached the door
from inside. Kirk pulled back, pressing against the wall. He sank
in deeper and deeper until it almost covered him. His muscles
strained to keep him inside, and he wondered if he could bury
himself completely. But there was still a stripe down his front
that wasn't covered.
But the Petraw passed by in the gloom without noticing him. Kirk
finally managed to pull away from the wall, which took as much
effort as sinking into it. Then he looked around the doorway again.
The machinery appeared to be pumps and some kind of a hydraulic
press. They were being operated by Petraw in the baggy
coveralls.
Kirk waited until none of the Petraw were in view before vaulting
across the opening. He wasn't ready to take on a dozen Petraw by
himself. Not yet.
He felt very conspicuous in his gold and black uniform. If anyone
came down the tunnel, he would be spotted instantly. But he
continued on. Far ahead, light was slanting out another door, and
beyond that was another door.
Kirk made the same careful approach. Each large chamber held
different types of machinery. In every one, the rock was left
exposed and work lights gave adequate illumination for the
Petraw.
His luck changed when he found the factory where the coveralls were
made. Inside the door were racks of drying coveralls, shining and
smelling strongly like a brand-new spacesuit. They were translucent
when wet, drying to nearly a solid white.
Kirk slipped in among the racks, going deeper to avoid the Petraw
who were conveying the garments out of a mold and hanging them up
to dry. Some of them were miniature, probably for babies, while
others were bigger than he was. They were designed exactly the
same; bags with legs that started at the knees and arms that
started at the elbows, ending in booties and four-fingered gloves.
The hood was attached to the neck.
He found one his size, but he wasn't sure how to get inside it.
After some experimental testing, he realized the neck stretched if
it was steadily pulled on. By the time his shoulders got through,
it was hanging open wide. But when he pulled up the hood, the
elasticized stuff began to shrink back into shape. What little
shape it had.
With the hood up, Kirk felt much better. His black pants could
vaguely be seen through the near-opaque polymer. But in the
darkness, no one would notice.
Finally feeling free to roam, Kirk slipped out of the garment
factory and began briskly walking down the center of the tunnel. He
didn't have to sneak up to every doorway, and could take more time
to examine the unusual machinery. It had the same hodgepodge
construction as Tasm's ship, as if different materials and
technology had been jumbled together to form one functioning
unit.
No one paid any attention to him, even when several Petraw passed
close by. They kept their eyes cast down as they walked, and their
movements seemed somewhat slow to Kirk.
He grew bolder, ranging through the corridors. His general
direction was up, figuring that would be the way to get out of the
complex. Yet the tunnels went on and on, making him pause as he
tried to remember his route. No sense getting lost in the maze. It
appeared to be laid out in concentric rings, with short, steeply
sloping tunnels up to the next level.
Though it had long underground corridors like the Kalandan station,
everything else was different. The Kalandan passageways were large
and kept sparkling clean like the space station it was. This place
was cramped, dark, and dirty, like an underground mine. The Petraw,
especially the smaller ones, were bowed down with work. With their
melted faces, he couldn't tell any of them apart.
Kirk didn't want to feel sorry for Tasm, but for some reason he
did.
It took hours before Kirk found what he was looking for - a docking
bay for spaceships. Keeping his elation in check, he passed a few
of the larger vessels the size of Tasm's ship. They filled the
underground bunkers from one end to the other. Then he came across
several hangars for the smaller shuttlecraft-type ships, the kind
that a single man could operate.
Kirk was grinning in relief. That hadn't been too difficult. Now
all he needed to do was get hold of the interstellar transporter
and steal a ship to return to the Enterprise.
It took a while to explore the extensive hangars to find the right
ship. Most were being worked on round the clock by the silent
waxwork Petraw.
At this point, he didn't hesitate to go right up to them. They were
so intent on their jobs that as long as he appeared to be doing a
task of his own no one paid attention to him. They coordinated with
each other with a minimum of clipped words, almost a
technocode.
The one time Kirk was asked a question, he made sure his hood hung
over his face before grunting and shaking his head. The worker
accepted his ignorance and asked someone else.
Finally Kirk found a small ship that appeared fully operational. He
slid into the pilot's seat and examined the controls. The panel was
activated, but it was like nothing he had ever seen. Spiky symbols
scrolled down one side, with triangles and diamond patterns on the
other side.
"Uh-oh," Kirk muttered. "Maybe not so simple..."
His other problem was how to get the ship out of the hangar. There
were large recessed doors in the ceiling of each bunker, but he
couldn't see a control panel that operated them.
I might need a native guide, he thought. Not that Luz or Tasm
seemed predisposed to help him.
Working at the panel, Kirk managed to call up the navigational
chart. The pattern of a galactic star map was clear in any
language. He felt a rising hope that he would manage in spite of
any obstacle - Then he realized what he was seeing. Amid the
multitude of stars, there was one that coincided with a red
stationary indicator. It was near the center of the galaxy, in the
spiral arm at the base of the Beta Quadrant.
Kirk froze. In the center of the galaxy ... if that red indicator
meant what he thought it meant, then he was there! At least forty
thousand light-years away from Federation territory ...
Dazed, he tried to do the math. At top warp speed of 9.9 - and no
ship could go that fast for very long - it would take him over
twenty years to get back to the Enterprise.
Chapter 2
It was a shock, no doubt about that. Kirk kept thinking about the
orange sky outside. It was filled with stars just as the sky would
be on a planet close to the galactic core.
But Kirk wasn't completely convinced until he checked two other
navigational arrays on different spacecrafts. Each one showed the
location indicator positioned over the same star near the galactic
core.
Well, that certainly changed things. Much as Kirk liked space
travel, he didn't intend to spend the better part of his life
dashing through unknown space trying to get home. Who in their
right mind would do something like that?
His only hope was the dimensional transporter. If he could get hold
of the cylindrical unit, hook it up to a self-diagnostic
subprocessor, then somehow build an archway out of solid neutronium
.. .
Even Spock would consider that an impossible task.
Kirk had no idea how neutronium could be made or shaped since it
was supposed to be impervious to heat and pressure.
He was almost delirious after so much searching, then hours of
examining spaceships. He hid out for a while in the fresher of one
of the ships as he tried to consider his dilemma, but he didn't
want to be discovered or, even worse, be on board if the ship took
off to points unknown.
Cautiously, he emerged in time to see at least a dozen Petraw
heading toward the door of the hangar. Kirk tagged along behind. He
kept thinking of the millions of stars between him and the
Enterprise. Was his crew looking for him now?
But the silent workers commanded his attention. Kirk wondered what
sort of terrible hardships must have befallen these people to make
them so downtrodden and subdued. He kept his own head down, too, to
cast a shadow over his well-defined features.
But when they emerged onto a ledge, he forgot himself and looked up
in frank amazement. They were at the bottom of another crack, a
miniature version of the crevice outside. These parallel walls were
much closer together. The inner wall was lined with hexagonal
cells, just like the one he had been sealed into by the Petraw.
These cells were open; a honeycomb of thousands of cells stacked at
least a hundred rows high.
The edges of each cell glowed, making a latticework up one side of
the narrow crack. The other wall loomed close in the
darkness.
The lattice was crawling with Petraw, climbing up or down, easily
gripping the open sides and stepping on the staggered rows. But it
was completely, eerily silent.
The Petraw from the hangar started climbing, so Kirk did too. His
gloves and booties were skid-resist-ant, helping him keep a grip on
the edges of the cells.
Inside most of the cells were Petraw, lying down. They were on
their backs, their heads concealed in the darkness at the other
end. Their encased feet stuck toward him.
Kirk climbed very high where more of the cells were empty. He
didn't want to take someone else's spot, though he wasn't sure how
anyone could find a certain cell among these identical
units.
Crawling inside, he sat on the edge and looked down. He was about
seventy-five meters high, but it seemed higher because of the
nearby opposite wall and the many levels between him and the
floor.
Kirk stretched out, lying down with his head at the inner end to
hide his face in the shadows. He was still trying to think of a way
out of this mess when he passed out.
Kirk was dreaming. It was a nightmare replay of the events leading
up to their leap through the gateway. But this time it was
different, as if he were watching it outside of himself, seeing
details he hadn't noticed before: Luz's snarling mouth as she
fought, the flare of the protective shield over the crevice, and
the arrival of the defenders on the platform....
That drove Kirk nearly to wakefulness, making him roll over. But he
let sleep pull him back in.
Then he was dreaming about Tasm. She was being praised by the
matriarchs. But he could only see a waxy-looking Petraw dressed hi
baggy coveralls. Then something in the way she moved and inclined
her head as she acknowledged their praise made Kirk realize it was
Tasm!
His eyes opened wide as he was jolted out of sleep.
But he could still see Tasm in her new guise. Only now it seemed to
fit her constrained and sexless manner. That's why he had rejected
her kiss. His subconscious mind had detected the forgery, and had
recoiled from a false intimacy with her.
Tasm will be rewarded with our highest honor. She will take her
place in the birthing chamber and will be fed the royal gel. She
will make a fine addition to our birthing world....
Kirk sat straight up, his heart pounding. Now he couldn't hear
anything. But somehow the words had formed in his mind.
His hands felt the slight curve on the floor at the end of the
cell. It was made to fit his skull. The concave surface felt
warm.
It was an information feed. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he
did. Just as he knew the matriarchs used it to distribute their
orders and information to Petraw throughout the galaxy.
Kirk hesitated for only a moment. Then he lay back down, placing
his head in the curve. He breathed deeply, trying to relax. If this
thing provided information, mat's exactly what he needed.
His fatigue helped. In spite of his surprise, his mind started to
drift. Then he saw Luz. Her face had been transformed, too. Now she
had mere dips for her eyes, with an abbreviated nose and a bump for
a chin. She was fully Petraw.
Apparently Luz had already given her version of events. Kirk was
disappointed; he wanted to know what had possessed her to steal the
interstellar transporter from her own commander. He was certain now
that Tasm had been surprised and appalled by Luz's betrayal.
Apparently that was the consensus.
Luz is defective and must be put away from the Petraw. The
defenders will put her into the deep.
Kirk could see Luz crying out, her gloved hands reaching up to
something he couldn't see. She was apparently protesting her
innocence. But he couldn't hear what she said.
Two of the larger Petraw took her by each arm, and Kirk couldn't
see her anymore.
He lay there for a few moments longer, but he got no other
information. It seemed like a haze hung over his
thoughts.
Kirk resisted, sitting up. They were going to kill Luz. If this was
happening in real time, they were going to do it any moment. Not
that he had any affection for Luz. Quite the contrary, it was
because of her that he was trapped so far from home. But the Petraw
defenders had made the first move against him by sealing him in
that cell. Their enemy was his potential ally.
Tasm was clearly out of the picture, now that she was a favored
member of the ruling clan. He would never trust her
again.
Kirk slid forward to the edge of his cell. He had slept for a
while, to judge from the cramp in his shoulder. Now where, in this
huge complex, is Luz?
It would be easier to figure out where they were taking her. The
deep... He was sitting at the edge of what was certainly a deadly
plunge, but he wouldn't call this the deep.
It had to be the giant fissure outside. They were going to throw
Luz off the platform.
Kirk rapidly climbed down the cells. There was still a lot of
movement over the latticework. After sleeping in the information
feed, it made more sense. As if he had been listening to routine
orders given throughout the night. He now knew there were thousands
of workers in this one block who kept the factories and shipyards
functioning. Other vast blocks of cells catered to the guards they
called "defenders," and the scouts in training.
Kirk hurried through the tunnels, slowing down only when he spotted
a Petraw ahead. He had been careful to memorize the tunnels he had
used, and was able to find his way back with only one wrong
turn.
After pushing through the first barrier, he knelt down to check on
the cell where he had been sealed in. It was difficult to see that
the seal had been broken unless you got close. So they might not
know yet that he had gotten away.
Feeling his way along the wall, he went toward the outer barrier.
It opened for him more easily this time, and he was outside again.
The orange light was bright.
Kirk leaned over the edge. The beige polymer sort of dripped over
the edge, but it offered no strategic advantage.
As the barrier closed again, he took up a stance behind it, against
one wall. He would jump the Petraw when it opened. Assuming that
they hadn't already marched Luz through here and over the edge. In
that case, there was nothing he could do for her.
- The barrier started to open, and by the time the Petraw stepped
through, Kirk was clinging to the wall near the top curve of the
tunnel. His hands and feet were buried in the soft polymer, giving
him the perfect ambush position.
They didn't see him. As the Petraw passed underneath, Kirk dropped
down on the first one. His feet kicked out to catch the other
Petraw in the face. They let go of Luz to fight back, but with a
few well-aimed chops from Kirk, they were both lying unconscious on
the floor. He wished he could learn how to do that Vulcan neck
pinch. It would be easier on his hands.
Luz looked completely different now, with smoothed features that
left her expressionless. Except for her thin-lipped mouth, which
was perfectly round in horror. "You!"
Kirk grabbed her. "Come on! Run!" he shouted at her.
Jerking on her arm, he pulled her after him. After a few stiff
steps, she finally got going. She must have been in a near-trance,
unable to resist being taken to a plunge to certain
death.
The second barrier was too slow in opening for Kirk's comfort. But
then they were through and running toward the factories. "Where
to?" Kirk asked.
She looked at him blankly, her steps faltering.
Kirk stopped and gave her shoulders a commanding shake. "You better
snap out of it and start helping me! The first thing they'll do is
announce that you've escaped. If you don't want to take a dive into
nowhere, you'll have to find us a safe place to hide."
"Yes!" she gasped out, clutching at his arm. "Yes, I think I know
where we can go."
Luz hurried down the tunnel, passing the doorways to the factories
until she found the one she was looking for. Kirk ducked inside
after her, wary of other Petraw. But Luz beckoned him to follow her
behind a bulky ion generator before anyone noticed them.
It was very dark behind the generator, though the polymer coating
on the wall continued to glow. Luz crouched down near an
obstruction. Kirk shifted until he could see that it was the wall
itself, stretched out and attached to a large round collar in the
side of the generator. It was nearly a meter in diameter.
Touching it, Kirk discovered the wall material was taut, pulled to
its maximum extension. It was amazing, the uses the Petraw found
for polymer.
Luz glanced up, her eyes shining with a fierce intensity. But she
didn't speak.
"This isn't going to be enough cover." Kirk crouched down, too, but
the junction wouldn't hide them if anyone walked behind the
generator.
"Everyone always underestimates me," Luz retorted
scornfully.
Placing both hands against the wall next to the junction, she
pushed. An opening appeared in the wall, widening to about a meter
in diameter. It was low to the ground, so Luz stuck her head and
arms inside, and with a wiggling motion, disappeared
inside.
Kirk scrambled closer. There was faint warm light glowing in the
walls of the small tube. "Can't you open it a bit wider?"
"Nothing satisfies you, does it?" Luz shot back over her shoulder.
She started to crawl away.
Kirk shook his head, knowing he'd be a bit caustic, too, if his own
people had just tried to throw him off a cliff. Bending his arms,
he crawled inside after her.
The opening slowly began to close behind him. "What is this?" he
called up to her.
"Access tubes for maintenance and repair." Her own voice was low.
"Be quiet, will you? There's other Petraw in these
tubes."
Creeping through the tiny space, bumping his head and elbows with
almost every movement, Kirk swore he would never again complain
about the size of the Jefferies tubes on board the Enterprise. If
he ever got back to the Enterprise.
At least the polymer offered padding for his knees, even if the
tube was too small. But it also took extra effort to move since he
sank into the stuff. It was like crawling through sticky
clay.
Kirk caught up with Luz as she reached an intersection. Another
tube crossed theirs. She listened for a few moments. Kirk wasn't
sure how any sound waves managed to carry in such spongy
surroundings. There was nothing for them to bounce off.
But Luz seemed satisfied. She turned right, scuttling away again as
Kirk slogged after her.
Luz was pushing on the ceiling when Kirk caught up again. Another
round opening grew in the top of the tunnel to nearly a meter
wide.
"How did you know where that tube was?" If she was going to keep
leaving him behind, he needed to be able to navigate on his own. He
didn't trust any of these Petraw.
Her rapidly blinking eyes and nervous twitching indicated she was
about to crack under the strain. "I can see it," she
snapped.
"Be more specific. What is it you see?" Luz ignored him. She stood
up inside the tube, lifting one foot to dig it into the lip. Her
toes sank in, giving her a grip. Her legs disappeared up the
tube.
Kirk couldn't see what she was holding on to. So he stood up in the
tube, feeling around with his hands. There was nothing but the
pliable wall. He figured she was clinging to the polymer the same
way he had ambushed her captors.
So he followed her, planting one foot into the tube and pushing
until his back braced against the other side. Using that for
leverage, he dug the heels of his hands into the wall next to him.
It was faster going up than forward.
Luz led him through a long series of tubes, climbing a number of
levels and heading deeper into the complex. Kirk was panting from
fighting the rubbery Walls when she finally turned in to a side
tunnel that terminated in a dim cul-de-sac.
"Is there another way out?" Kirk asked.
"Yes," she said shortly.
Kirk waited, but she didn't offer anything else. "Listen, we're in
this together, whether you like it or not. I asked you a question,
and I expect an answer."
Luz sullenly gestured to the end of the wall next to her. "This
takes us into one of the waste reclamation chambers. Nobody uses
this tube because the opening is so high up. But if we have to, we
can jump down."
Satisfied, Kirk sat down next to her, straining to see the wall at
the end. It looked no different from everything else. He knew he
would have trouble finding his way through the access tubes without
Luz. And she was not being cooperative.
Kirk had learned that when all else failed, make Mends with your
enemy. "Why did you do it, Luz? Why did you take the
gateway?"
She glanced over at him. Her face was so different that he kept
having to remind himself that he knew this person. If only Dr.
McCoy hadn't stopped him from interrogating her inside the Kalandan
station. Luz was obviously unstable. If he had ordered McCoy to
stay out of it, he might have cracked her cover. But at the time he
had nothing concrete on which to base his doubts. The Petraw were
competent con artists, if nothing else.
Luz tried sarcasm to fend him off. "Why would anyone take the
gateway? Who wants to transport thousands of light-years in an
instant?"
"I wish I could," Kirk replied. "What I don't understand is why you
betrayed your own people. Surely Tasm was planning on taking the
gateway for the Petraw."
"Tasm!" Luz blurted out, unable to restrain herself. "This is all
her fault. She made the wrong decision at every point, /was trying
to save the gateway!"
Cannily, Kirk agreed, "You did bring it back to your
people."
"That's what I told the matriarchs! Tasm is so inept she would have
lost it. She was going to try that Klingon ruse herself, to scare
you away. It was an inane idea." "You used it," Kirk had to point
out. "Yes, to gain time to secure the station. It worked perfectly
for that." Luz looked proud of herself. "But Tasm doesn't have a
shred of originality. She didn't think of using the gateway to
return home. She would have sent it back on an automated drone,
making the Petraw wait another generation before we had this
technology to use."
"So you did help your people." Kirk added, "Now they'll find out
how the gateway technology works." "Thanks to me!"
"Where do you think they'll take the cylinder to analyze
it?"
Luz drew away from him slightly. "I'm not telling you anything! I'm
a loyal Petraw."
"Yeah, so loyal they almost killed you." Luz closed her burning
eyes. "That's because Tasm came along and ruined everything! I
would be the one accepted into the birthing chamber if she wasn't
here.
Another cron and I would have been gone before you
arrived!"
Luz put her hands over her face, curling into a ball. Kirk knew it
would be useless to try to get information out of her right now. It
was depraved the way these people lied and cheated, even their own
crewmates, to get what they wanted.
He no longer felt sympathy for any of the Petraw. To think, this
selfish greed was what had brought him so far from his own ship.
Kirk turned away from Luz, propping his head in his hand. He almost
wished he hadn't rescued her.
Time blurred together for Kirk, with no way for him to tell when
each day had passed. They snatched sleep in the tiny access tubes,
leaving only to go to one of the cell blocks where Luz showed him
the feedtubes deep inside.
Kirk needed to eat, but it was a strange experience. He had to pull
on the strawlike tube until it straightened and dripped a golden
liquid. It tasted tart and was rather thick and syrupy. According
to Luz, it supplied the nourishment needs of the Petraw in this
complex. He was thirsty enough to drink deeply every time he could,
but after a while he wished there were some other flavor. He wasn't
used to eating the same thing all the time.
Whenever they left the narrow access tubes, they saw scores of
defenders, the bigger Petraw who were searching for him and Luz. At
first Kirk thought he had made a tactical error by rescuing Luz,
alerting the Petraw that he was on the loose. But Luz knew a great
deal about the complex that enabled them to avoid the
defenders.
At one point, the search teams were going through the access tubes
meter by meter. Luz kept trying to dodge them. They were forced to
keep moving or be caught.
"I didn't want to do it, but I guess there's no other option," Luz
finally said, huddled in the tube in front of Kirk.
"Now what?" It looked as though their time was running
out.
"We'll have to go into the web. That's the network of tubes that
link a block of cells close to here."
Kirk had become more comfortable with the towering cells, but he
wasn't prepared for the tangle of access tubes that filled the
space behind. He crawled after Luz, sighting workers here and there
in the dim light They kept making sharp turns, climbing up, then
down to get away.
Kirk was exhausted from the climbing when Luz uttered something in
exasperation. "They're all around us."
"I don't see them," Kirk protested, looking behind.
"I can feel it in the tube," she said vaguely. "We'll have to make
a dash for it."
"For what?" he asked doubtfully.
Luz didn't answer, opening a tube above them and starting to climb
even faster than before. Kirk didn't try to talk to her, saving his
breath for the effort.
After a long ascent, Luz finally paused. She appeared to be
listening before she cautiously pushed on the wall next to her,
opening the tube. Then she slithered through headfirst.
Kirk emerged into a much larger room. Without hesitation, he lifted
his arms up, stretching as tall as he could. He felt as if he were
turning into a scurrying bug that inhabited the woodwork.
Luz was kneeling over something. Another tube was opening
up.
Kirk sighed, but when she pulled back so he could look inside, it
wasn't a tube as he expected. Below the bole in the ground, it
opened up almost as large as the chamber they were in. About four
meters down, there was a smooth flat floor. It was a deeper golden
color and lacked the inner glow of the surrounding walls.
"Hold on to the edge," Luz told him. "We'll hang from here until
they pass through."
"What is it?"
"A nutrient sac, holding the nourishment for distribution to the
cells."
Kirk swallowed. How could he miss that smell of the sweet syrup
they drank every day?
Luz swung over the edge, digging her gloved hands into the lip of
the sac. Kirk thought he heard voices, and he quickly slid over
himself, making sure his grip was good. The opening was already
slowly squeezing shut.
He swung slightly next to her. "Can't we just tread water - or,
whatever you call it?"
"The walls are stretched taut. We wouldn't be able to climb back
out."
She shifted as the opening shrank back to nearly its closed
position. Kirk also had to regrip. He hoped none of the defenders
would see their fingers digging into the pliant edge.
The smell was overpowering. He didn't want to imagine what would
happen if he fell into it, stuck swimming until he couldn't stay
afloat any longer, then finally sinking under....
This time he could feel the slight vibration of people walking
around. Maybe because his entire weight was supported by his
fingers. He was in agony, trying not to make a sound.
After a while, the vibrations ceased.
"Are they gone?" he whispered, aching to get back out.
"A bit more. They'll have to check the other sac rooms."
Luz hadn't said a word about the interstellar transporter since
Kirk had first questioned her. But as they dangled uselessly from
the lip of the sac, she finally said, "Tasm is completely inept.
You would never have let her take the gateway, would
you?"
Kirk looked at her in surprise. "You want to talk about that
now?"
"Why not?" Luz was staring morosely down at the nutrient
fluid.
Kirk considered the question. "My orders were to keep the gateway
from falling into enemy hands. I didn't trust Tasm, so I don't
think I would have let her take it."
"I thought so." Luz shifted, getting a better grip. "Tasm would
have destroyed your ship to take the gateway."
Kirk remembered the ease with which Tasm had disintegrated the
Klingon cruiser with their quantum torpedoes. "The Enterprise has
been in worse situations and survived."
"Then it's too bad you didn't bring your ship with you," Luz
retorted.
"I like a streamlined mission every now and again." Kirk smiled,
showing his teeth. He was not about to indulge in useless worry or
let Luz know that this was a particularly tight spot he was in.
Confidence was the key to success. If he didn't make it back to the
Enterprise, he would have plenty of time later to think about
failure.
Chapter 3
Kirk tried various tactics to make Luz cooperate with him. He was
desperate enough to single-handedly hijack a starship, but he
wasn't leaving without the gateway component. Luz refused to tell
him anything that would help him locate it.
They continued to elude the searchers, forgoing sleep to keep on
the move. Kirk was amazed anew at the size of the
complex.
Every time they had to go into a block of cells to get some
nourishment, Kirk placed his head in the information feed, trying
to hear news about the gateway. But it was hard for him to access
the feed because he had to be nearly asleep to hear anything. He
was so wary of searchers checking the cells that it was tough to
relax.
Needless to say, despite his attempts he didn't discover anything
useful. But he did get the sense that the search for him and Luz
was easing off and valuable workers had been returned to their
regular duties.
He wasn't surprised. They would eventually be found, and there
wasn't much they could do to harm the Petraw while they were on the
run. Especially with Luz still fanatically loyal to her own
people.
Yet the countless days of constant companionship, forced to
struggle together to survive, had an impact on Luz. Kirk could
understand it would be hard to stay faithful to people who were out
to kill you. Gradually, Luz's rants against Tasm shifted against
the matriarchs and the other Petraw. Her most scathing comments
were reserved for her own podmates.
They were sitting in yet another narrow access tube, with Kirk
trying to ignore the closeness of the walls, when Luz muttered for
the hundredth time, "No imagination. No insight. Just because Tasm
was the leader, they rewarded her and tossed me away. Even though /
was right. Now Tasm will breed a bunch more idiotic Petraw to
bumble around out there, making a mess out of their
engagements."
"You're obviously not meant to be with these people." It was a
habit now for him to try to flatter her. "Why don't you leave here?
Surely there are other Petraw who would appreciate your
talents."
Luz frowned thoughtfully. "I thought about that. Petraw territory
is far-flung. There are birthing worlds far removed from
here."
"You think you could get a ship out of this complex?" Kirk asked
with deceptive lightness.
"Possibly." She seemed wary of telling him more. "The shield
generators on top would have to be disabled."
Kirk felt a leap of eagerness. "Disabling shield generators is my
line of work."
Anything would be better than skulking around in the dark. But what
if he did get off this planet? Then what? Stranded far from Earth,
possibly never seeing another human being again ...
Not if he could help it Luz was shaking her head. "But even if I
was allowed to stay on another birthing world, I'd be relegated to
cleaning waste tubes for the rest of my life. Only those born in
the complex are accepted into the birthing chamber."
"Didn't Tasm earn that by giving the matriarchs the gateway?" At
her sudden interest, Kirk added, "Valuable technology like the
interstellar transporter is worth something."
"But our matriarchs would spread the word against me," Luz
protested.
"Do you really think anyone in their right mind would give up the
gateway? They'll want to back-engineer it for
themselves."
She searched his face. "That's true. I could take it to one of the
distant worlds where it would take time for the feed to spread. And
once I was made a matriarch, it would be too late to change
it."
"I'll make a deal with you, Luz. I want out of this place. I can't
stand it anymore." He give a realistic shudder, hoping she would
think his human sensibilities were overwhelmed by the alien
culture. "I'll help you get the cylinder for the gateway if you get
me out of here. Once we're off this planet, we're both free to go
our separate ways."
"You said your orders are to keep the transporter from falling into
enemy hands," Luz pointed out. "Why Would you let me take
it?"
His grin twisted. "If you help me get out of here, then that makes
you my ally."
Luz hesitated, then shook her head. "I don't believe
you."
Kirk almost sighed. It had been worth a shot.
"But," she added, "I think you're right that taking the gateway is
the only way I'll earn my proper place among the Petraw. I've got
to get it back."
Hiding his elation was not easy, but Kirk simply nodded. "Then we
can both get out of here."
Her shallow eyes and smooth skin were like a mask, hiding her true
feelings. "I know where it may be."
Kirk didn't want to risk upsetting his tenuous agreement with Luz,
so he contained his anticipation as he followed her through the
tubes. They kept going down, and were heading toward the side of
the complex adjacent to the cliffs.
They descended lower than Kirk had ever been, when they reached a
long tube that slanted downward. "This is different."
"It's one of the access tubes for the conduits supplying the
experimental stations." Her voice was muffled, facing downhill in
front of him. He could only see her rounded behind and her feet
pointing back at him. "That's where we work with technology we
don't understand. It's safer that way."
"Safer? Why?"
She paused to look back. "The cliff has been rigged with charges so
that in an emergency, each experimental station can be dropped into
the chasm. It's molten rock at the bottom, so anything dangerous is
swallowed up before it can damage the rest of the
complex."
Kirk could appreciate their caution. He would have taken care to
protect his ship before attempting to crack open that neutronium
cylinder. It would take an incredible amount of energy to penetrate
the seal on the gateway's secrets.
The search began. There was a long row of chambers that held
experimental stations, and Kirk doggedly crawled through each tube
after Luz. There were Petraw workers in these access tubes, but
Kirk just kept his head down and pretended to be intent on his
duty.
The tubes were attached only to the inner walls of the rooms. To
check each station, they crawled forward and opened the wall,
usually next to some conduit, while Luz peered around. These rooms
were solid rock except for the inner wall. They were brightly
illuminated by pole lights.
Kirk couldn't recognize most of the equipment they saw, but Luz
only needed a glimpse to dismiss each station. It made him uneasy,
but he was convinced that she truly wanted to find the dimensional
transporter. She was focused in a way he had never seen before,
intent on her objective. Finally he could see the determination
that had enabled her to fool everyone, including himself. She had
almost succeeded in getting away clean with the gateway.
Luz leaned forward on yet another opening. She barely pushed,
allowing the tube to iris only slightly. She got very close to look
through, blocking Kirk's view.
"There's the magnetomotive," Luz exclaimed. "It's fully
operational."
"Let me see." Kirk squirmed up next to her, putting his eyes to the
hand-sized opening. They were about four meters above the floor
with a conduit running out from the wall next to them. It was
attached to a scaffold tower. The interlocking bars seemed too
delicate to support the enormous black rings. Each ring was at
least twenty meters wide and five tall. Kirk counted fifteen rings
stacked on top of one another, separated by suspension units on the
scaffolding.
"What is it?" Kirk asked.
"A series of magnetic circuits that focus the electromagnetic field
of this planet."
The light glanced off a microthin coil wrapped around the magnet
rings. Spock would have been able to tell him exactly how much
magnetic flux was being generated.
Kirk guessed it might be enough to power the dimensional
transporter. "You think they're trying to activate the
gateway?"
"Naturally."
"But there's no archway, no computer..." Then he remembered Tasm's
pouch, probably conveniently stuffed with all the information Spock
and her officers had obtained while working on the
gateway.
The bulk of the room lay beyond the dull black tower of magnets.
Determined to discover the truth, Kirk pushed open the tube so he
could see better. The floor between the magnets and the inner wall
was smooth rock. But the door was down to their left, and he would
be in full view of anyone entering or leaving.
"Will that conduit hold my weight?" he asked Luz.
She also looked down, then at the wide duct next to them. In
answer, she swung her leg over the duct, using her hands to balance
on the shaft. Kirk kept an eye on the doorway, hoping no one would
come in at that moment.
Hitching herself forward, Luz crossed over the gap so she could
step onto the scaffolding. Kirk swiftly followed.
This close to the magnetic flux, Kirk could feel his hair rising on
his body. A subsonic hum rattled his bones, filling his ears with
an endless thrumming. It sounded as if the circuits were powering
up.
Their scaffolding tower was connected to the others on either side
by narrow catwalks that circled the open sections between the
magnets. Squat round suspension units were spaced along the
catwalks, holding up the incredible weight.
"Higher," Kirk whispered, gesturing up. If there was anyone in the
room, they wouldn't be as apt to notice them if they were in the
darkened area near the ceiling. Most of the light was concentrated
low.
The tower swayed under their climbing, seemingly too weak to hold
up the magnets. But that work was really being done by the
suspension units. The entire framework would crash to the ground if
enough suspension units failed.
Near the top, Kirk stepped onto one of the catwalks. He went in the
opposite direction from the door so he wouldn't be seen.
As he started out, it was impossible not to look down. His arms
stretched out for better balance, but he instantly pulled his hands
back in. The magnetic field was strong enough to cause a burning
sensation against Ms skin.
It was tough to balance on the narrow metal grate as be walked. At
the next tower, he eased forward, looking farther around the
magnets. The only thing he could see was the next scaffolding
tower. Luz was already starting to cross the catwalk after
him.
It took two more nerve-racking trips across the cat-Walks to reach
the scaffolding tower one-quarter of the way around the magnets.
Then Kirk saw a Petraw standing against the far corner in the
attitude of a guard.
Kirk pointed down, gesturing to Luz to keep quiet. She stayed at
the back of the scaffolding, gazing fearfully at the hooded head of
the defender. Kirk went forward to the front end of the
scaffolding. A mere two meters made the difference. Now he had a
view of everything in front of the magnetomotive.
The arch was the first thing he saw. It was standing in the center
of a ring of lights, highlighted like a rare piece of art. It was
an identical replica of the one they had found on the Kalandan
station. The neutronium gleamed in blue-black highlights, and the
impenetrable alloy was even molded into the same pattern. He knew
he shouldn't be surprised at anything the Petraw were capable of.
Though they looked like simple underground dwellers, their
technological capability exceeded that of almost every other
culture he had encountered.
That arch changed everything. Kirk couldn't begin to imagine the
terrible things the Petraw would be capable of with an operational
interstellar transporter. These people were ruthless and would use
this technology to their own advantage. It was his fault the
gateway had fallen into their hands.
Kirk was determined to change that. Staying very still to keep from
attracting the attention of the guard, he searched for the
cylindrical unit. In the very front of the magnetomotive, the huge
rings were open, with a segment at least five meters wide cut out,
indicating it was the more powerful open-flux system.
But he couldn't see the key component of the gateway from his
position. It wasn't attached to the new arch, which meant he
couldn't steal it the same way Luz had done. Instead, there were a
bunch of cables that snaked along the floor toward the
magnetomotive.
Luz joined him, keeping a wary eye on the guard. Her sharp intake
of breath indicated she saw the gateway, too.
A voice came from below. "You two get back to the door. Just
because we're holding a test run doesn't mean you can leave your
posts."
Kirk couldn't see who was talking, but he recognized her voice. It
was Tasm.
A hooded Petraw strode up to the arch and knelt to check the
cables. From nearly sixty meters up, Kirk couldn't see much other
than a sharply foreshortened view of her head and shoulders. "Is
the flux stabilized yet?" Tasm asked.
Another Petraw somewhere down below and around the curve answered,
"It has reached optimum level."
"Proceed with the test run," Tasm ordered.
She pulled back to the corner of the room, standing next to the
defender who was posted there. If she looked up, she would see Kirk
and Luz. He hardly breathed.
A different Petraw stepped up to face the gateway. Kirk clenched
his hands around the scaffolding. They were at the point of testing
the gateway? Those long days of dodging through the tubes and
snatching naps in cul-de-sacs took on new meaning. The Petraw must
have worked continuously to pull the gateway together.
The Petraw standing in front of the gateway let out a slight cry.
"I see it!"
Inside the gateway an image had formed of windblown sand nearly
burying two metallic structures. The Orange sky looked fluorescent
in the blazing light. Kirk recognized the surface near the fissure.
"Now go through," Tasm urged from her safe spot across the
room.
The Petraw eagerly stepped forward. Kirk leaned out as far as he
dared to see the hooded form enter the gateway in a flash of
brilliant light. The magnetomotive shook the scaffolding as power
was drawn at a phenomenal rate.
Nothing came out the other side. The Petraw was gone.
The subsonic hum of the magnetomotive made Kirk's head
pound.
Tasm was staring down at a handheld communicator, rigid in
concentration. "Anx made it! He's next to the shield
generators."
The unseen Petraw exclaimed, "The gateway is functional! I'll
inform the matriarchs at once."
Tasm tapped into the communicator. "I'm ordering Anx back. We'll
try a long-range test this time. Keep the magnetomotive on full
standby."
Her underling acknowledged, pride in his voice. They should be
proud of themselves, Kirk thought. They now possessed a weapon of
unbelievable strength.
Kirk was determined to make this work for him. The gateway offered
him the chance to cross those troublesome forty thousand
light-years in an instant. But he couldn't allow the Petraw to keep
the gateway. The responsibility would be his if they used the
gateway to harm others.
Tasm went to the base of the magnetomotive, disappearing from view.
Kirk carefully withdrew to the back of the scaffolding, where he
could no longer see the guard.
Luz seemed goaded to dreams of glory. "How are we going to get
everyone out of here?" she whispered.
"We'll have to create a diversion." Kirk reached into the top of
his boot to retrieve his broken communicator.
The sarium krellide power cell was too small to cause much damage
if he made it overload. But there must be something he could do in
a neighboring chamber that would draw Tasm out. It would have to
last long enough for the gateway to read his mind and cut through
the light-years between him and home - Luz tried to snatch the
communicator from his hand. "What are you doing?"
Kirk managed to hang on to it, but the broken cover flew off the
hinge, arching down and falling sixty meters. Both of them drew
back as far as they could before it hit bottom, uselessly trying to
hide in the shadows.
"Now who's the idiot?" Kirk shot at Luz.
"You were going to sabotage the gateway - "
"You've just proven my point."
Gritting his teeth, Kirk hoped the cover wouldn't make too much
noise on the rock floor. But it bounced erratically, hitting
corners and edges, before spinning slowly into a stop.
The movement caught the defender's attention. He instantly alerted
the other Petraw in the room with a loud shout.
Kirk wanted to push Luz off the scaffolding. Only someone who
thought they were smarter than everyone else could do something so
lame-brained.
He tried a strategic retreat as the defender went to inspect what
had fallen. He made it to the next scaffolding tower while Luz was
still inching over the catwalk, but it didn't take long for the
defender to light up the entire tower and detect them both. Kirk
couldn't see any way to escape with Petraw climbing up the
scaffolding on either side of him. With visions of the chasm
dancing before his eyes, he slowly climbed down to the
floor.
Luz was dragged from the scaffolding as well, and in the shrieking
melee she caused trying to break free, Kirk made a dash for the
arch. All he could think about was the misty terrace next to the
commandant's office at Starfleet Academy, overlooking the glorious
arch of the antiquated Golden Gate Bridge. He could almost taste
the salty ocean air, he wanted it so badly.
But Tasm stepped between him and the archway, stopping him short by
pointing his own phaser at him. One look in her eyes and he could
see Tasm even through her dissolved face. "Don't move, Kirk, or
I'll put you away for good."
Chapter 4
Kirk froze. "You'd use my own phaser on me, Tasm?"
She was as coldhearted as Kirk always believed. "Yes."
Kirk kept his hands out. "It's set to kill."
"I know."
She didn't flinch, and he didn't doubt she would fire if he made a
threatening move. He did nod toward the distinctive blue cylinder
that was mounted on a large computer unit. It was sitting next to
the magnetomotive. "The gateway doesn't belong to you."
"Now it does. I earned it."
Kirk couldn't see anything left of the woman he had kissed in the
Kalandan station. Her unformed features were softened and flattened
like the other Petraw. Except for her eyes, fierce with Tasm
determination.
The big Petraw defenders weren't taking any chances this time. With
each of his arms held by a defender, Kirk was marched out of the
experimental station. He cast one longing look back at the gateway.
So close. He had almost made it home.
Tasm took the lead, overshadowed by the defender next to her. Kirk
was half-carried, half-dragged up a long slanting corridor. As they
went up, Kirk wondered if they were being taken to the exterior
platform where they would be summarily tossed off the cliff to
smash into the molten rock at the bottom. At least the heat would
burn him to a cinder before he hit the lava.
But after going up a few levels, they began to move deeper into the
complex. Kirk kept track of every turn they took, optimistically
intending to use the knowledge to find his way back to the gateway.
That was the spirit. He only needed to get Tasm and the defenders
to cooperate by turning their backs and ignoring him for a few
minutes....
They picked up more defenders along the way who seemed eager to
pound him into a pulp if he so much as twitched. He wasn't sure how
he knew that when they didn't say a word. Maybe it was because they
all looked alike, and something about that uniformity was
unnerving.
A couple of times Luz started yelling past Kirk at Tasm, venting
the frustration that had been boiling inside of her for days. Kirk
wasn't sure how Tasm kept her steady pace. Some of the insults
about her intelligence and command abilities were enough to make
him wince on her behalf. He supposed Luz wasn't counting on
leniency from her commanding officer. She hadn't gotten it the
first time.
They finally reached their destination. Kirk could tell by the way
Tasm glared at him, cautioning, "One wrong move and I'll shoot
you."
Kirk raised his hands slightly to indicate he didn't want any
trouble. "You could just give me a ship and let me go right now,
Tasm."
"That's for the matriarchs to decide."
Luz was panting, infuriated. She hardly looked Petraw compared to
the others, with her face contorted in anger. "I saved the gateway!
I brought it back."
Tasm actually smiled. "Perhaps the matriarchs will thank you before
putting you away, Luz."
"You don't deserve to join them! It should be my honor..." Luz
lunged against the defenders holding her, but she couldn't shake
them. She swung there, a fighting slip of a woman.
Tasm didn't touch the wall, but an opening began to grow slightly
larger than the others. The Petraw herded them inside. There must
have been a dozen defenders around them now, along with Tasm
holding the phaser.
Kirk looked up and kept on looking. They were at the bottom of a
cylindrical well that rose very high into the rock, at least ten
times higher than it was wide. In the very center, a long slender
tube dangled down to a bulbous gold sack that nearly brushed the
floor. It was shaped like a ripe pear, and swayed slightly as the
air was disturbed by their entrance. Its rounded sides were shiny
taut.
Looking up, Kirk saw that the surrounding walls, starting about ten
meters above them, were dotted by hundreds of small protrusions.
The curving wall was so dark that it took him a moment to see they
were moving.
They were Petraw. At least, each one was the head, arms, and chest
of a Petraw. Kirk shifted so he could see the lowest one better,
and gulped. Where its legs had once been was a swollen mass that
stretched wide, bulbously attaching to the lumpy, moist wall. "What
is this?" he asked incredulously.
"This is the birthing chamber," Tasm said reverently. "Joining the
birthing chamber is our highest honor," Luz snapped. "She doesn't
deserve it!"
Tasm glared at Luz, but saved her words for those who mattered.
"Beloved matriarchs, we have brought you Luz and the
invader."
Kirk didn't think it was a good idea to be considered a nameless
antagonist. "Matriarchs! I am James T. Kirk and I come in p -
"
One of the Petraw defenders belted him in the stomach. That dropped
him to his knees, and they withdrew to a watchful two
paces.
Kirk coughed and choked, trying to catch his breath. Luz landed
next to him, on her knees, looking up the well of matriarchs. Heads
turned on the wall, and arms gestured in various attitudes of
distress or condemnation.
Tasm stood next to them, with the phaser still aimed at Kirk.
"Matriarchs, we found Luz and the intruder near the gateway while
we were testing it."
Kirk had to put his hands to his ringing ears. Something about the
well amplified their voices, but it was pure sound with no
articulated words.
Gradually, there seemed to be streams of consensus within the
tones, as threads of their comments rose to near-audibility. Kirk
relaxed to hear what they said, much the same way he did inside the
cells. He realized this was the source of the information feed in
action. Luz is defective. Luz must be put away immediately. Luz's
mouth opened wide. "But I'm the one who brought you the gateway!
Ask him! He wouldn't have let Tasm take it. She would have lost
it!"
Like an implacable river, the thoughts droned on: Luz is defective.
Luz must be put away immediately. Rather than be condemned without
a hearing, like Luz, Kirk lifted his hands to appeal to them.
"Matriarchs, it was an accident that brought me to your world. I'm
no invader! Surely we can come to an understanding - "
He could hear their rising agreement even as he spoke, buzzing
through the bones of his ears. The invader must be put away. The
invader must be put away immediately.
Tasm finally looked satisfied. "I knew it. I'll make sure it's done
properly this time."
Kirk started to protest, but a new sentiment began rising from the
matriarchs. It was filled with something like warmth of
feeling.
Tasm is exemplary. Tasm will soon join us.
Kirk was nonplussed by the idea of what must happen for Tasm to be
transformed and joined to the wall of the birthing chamber. She
would be stuck somewhere up there among the hundreds....
Tasm took another step closer to the sack that hung in the center
of the birthing chamber, raising her empty hand toward it. Her body
trembled in eagerness. "The royal gel is almost ready."
That's when he understood. The polymer substructure of the Petraw
complex was the living body of the matriarchs. It was one vast
organism that was growing in the tunnel-riddled cliffs. This well
was their brain center. The matriarchs supported their children in
their own body, using their own life systems to distribute
nourishment and remove the waste.
Kirk refused to let his own cultural bias affect his judgment this
time. What concerned him most was the monolithic nature of these
Petraw. He would never be able to admire a society that forced all
individuality out of its people.
One thing was clear, there was no reasoning with these Petraw. Kirk
made his decision and acted instantly.
He knocked against Tasm, grabbing for his phaser. She was so
absorbed in gazing at the sac that he twisted it from her hand. The
defenders leaped at him, but he bounded up the slight rise and
jumped onto the hanging sac.
It swung widely. Cries rose around him, with Tasm's outraged wail
the loudest The defenders hesitated, pulling back as the sac swung
toward them, as if it was taboo for them to touch the royal gel.
Kirk scrabbled higher up the side, feeling the tension in the full
sac like it was going to burst; He got to the top. "Nobody turns my
own phaser against me, Tasm."
"You can't touch the gel!" she screamed.
"Oh, no?" Kirk stamped on the bag, hanging on to the slender tube
as it swayed sharply.
Tasm shrieked as the defenders gathered around the base of the sac,
cutting off any avenue of escape. The waving arms of the matriarchs
and the buzzing of their thoughts warned him that more defenders
were being dispatched from the blocks of cells. They would be here
shortly. Luz backed toward the door, seeing a chance to
escape.
Kirk aimed his phaser down at the sac and fired as he jumped. It
was set to kill.
A geyser burst straight up in a spray of yellow blobs of goo. Kirk
was propelled higher into the air as the sac exploded in a boiling
gush of sticky liquid. Tasm and the defenders were
covered.
His feet slipped in the ankle-deep stuff, as he landed. But he was
instantly up and heading for the door, phaser firmly in
hand.
Matriarchs were protesting in shrill voices, echoing through the
well. Tasm was also crying out, but it sounded like ecstasy as she
flopped around on her side. The baggy coverall over her legs began
to swell.
The defenders were gasping in agony, writhing on the floor.
Apparently only females reacted well to the royal gel. Kirk kicked
to try to dislodge the rancid stuff from his feet, but it didn't
seem to be bothering him.
He reached Luz in time to pull her away from the edge of the
splattered gel. Her eyes were glazed, and she was shaking with
desire to dive in.
"Make your choice, Luz. I don't have time to fight you."
Her straining toward the gel eased, and her eyes focused on him.
"They would kill me before they let me join the birthing
chamber."
"Then let's go!"
Kirk set off down the corridor at a flat run. It would be a race to
see who got to the gateway first.
When he had a moment, he adjusted the phaser setting back to stun.
He wouldn't be reduced to the ruthlessness of the Petraw. But he
freely stunned workers and defenders who spotted them. There was no
way they would have gotten through the complex without the phaser.
If they were faced with a large enough attack force, he could be
overwhelmed by numbers. It depended on how long it would take the
matriarchs to rally the defenders and send them down to the
gateway.
Kirk stunned several more Petraw in the long corridor to the
experimental stations. But there were no defenders posted at the
door to the gateway room. They had been too eager to accompany them
to the matriarchs.
Inside, the magnetomotive was running at full standby. Ready for
the final test.
Kirk hit Tasm's assistant with a phaser beam before she could say a
word.
Luz went to the cylinder and grabbed hold of it, trying to wrench
it from the metal computer unit.
"No!" Kirk demanded. 'This gateway is our only way out."
Luz protested, "But I need it! No other birthing world will take me
without it - "
"There's no time! It's either die here or come with me.
Now."
She hesitated, glancing at the door where defenders would arrive
any moment. Then she looked at the phaser held loosely in his hand.
He could point it at her to force her to agree, but his innate
sense of decency wouldn't allow it.
Maybe that did it, or else Luz finally saw the wisdom in his words.
She went over to the controls of the magnetomotive and adjusted the
dials. "There. It's ready to go."
Kirk went to the gateway. The image of the terrace overlooking
Starfleet Academy was bright in his mind's eye. But his hands were
busy with the phaser. He clicked it to level ten, then set the
energy feed wide open. It was the same way the Kalandan defense
computer had overloaded his phaser back on the station. A whine
quickly began to grow as the power cell cycled faster.
"What are you doing?" Luz demanded. "You can't - "
"I'm keeping them from following us."
He took a deep breath and concentrated on the terrace. Voices were
coming from the corridor outside as the moist flagstones appeared.
The cloud-filled sky loomed over the craggy hills of San Francisco.
It was just as Kirk remembered.
Without another thought, he pushed Luz through the gateway. It
blinded him for a moment as she stumbled over the threshold. Then
the light faded while she fell onto the flagstones, looking around
in surprise as if she could no longer see him.
Several Petraw burst into the room and rounded the magnetomotive.
As Kirk jumped through the gateway, he flung the overloading phaser
sideways, directly into the gap of the magnets where the flux
crossed.
The flash as he passed through the gateway was brighter than he
remembered, but this time the light didn't stun him. He looked back
as the Petraw running toward him were caught in the explosion of
the phaser. It broke the delicate hold of the suspension units, and
the magnets began to crash to the ground, falling directly toward
the gateway.
A push of air seemed to propel him through the gateway faster than
his own momentum.
The last thing he saw, the walls of the chamber shuddered and began
to fall. It disintegrated, taking everything in it down into the
chasm and the molten rock below.
Kirk's heart was pounding in reaction, feeling as if he were also
sliding to certain death. But the flagstones were firm under his
hands, and he could hear Luz's gasping cries. They were on the
terrace overlooking Starfleet Academy, forty thousand light-years
from the destruction of the gateway.
It was done. He had buried the gateway in the fiery heart of the
planet. And he had managed to return home at the same time. He
couldn't stop grinning. "Welcome to Earth!"
Commodore Enwright and the other Starfleet officials eventually let
Luz go after she and Kirk were fully debriefed. She didn't know
much more than Kirk had already figured out during his visit to the
Petraw birthing world. Luz claimed that it was against Petraw laws
when Tasm had made them pose as Kalandans to steal the gateway.
Kirk didn't believe a word of her testimony, knowing that Luz would
say whatever it took to get her way. But Starfleet was
satisfied.
On the last day, when the Enterprise was finally due to enter
orbit, Kirk went to say good-bye to Luz at the orbital space
station.
She was subdued to suddenly find herself alone without any of her
people. Kirk hadn't heard a word about how stupid they were since
they had passed through the gateway.
"Do you plan to try to return to the Petraw?" he asked. "It's a
long way back."
"No," Luz said flatly. "The Petraw would never accept me. I'm
heading out on my own now."
Kirk was sure she would be fine. After all, she had almost
succeeded in getting everything she wanted. "The Alpha Quadrant is
a remarkable place. It may offer more opportunities than you
think." Kirk had to shake his head. "There's a lot to admire in
your people, but I don't see how their totalitarian regime could
satisfy your needs."
She looked at him oddly. "You never did understand the Petraw, did
you? Our unity is what makes us magnificent."
"You violated that unity," Kirk pointed out.
Luz finally smiled. "Well you heard the matriarchs. I'm
defective."
"Lucky for me."
Luz gazed out the observation window, looking toward the core of
the galaxy. "But the other Petraw are strong. And they're coming, I
know it. We haven't seen the last of my people yet."
******
STAR TREK CHALLENGER
EXODUS
Diane Carey
The free dancer was dying. Its enormous lunglike body inflated one
final time, but not enough. The creature wailed as its microbrain
struggled to remember the path to the skies.
Where would it land?
Alarms rang through the city trails. Despite the danger, steel
shutters clanked open on the north side of many domed huts. Brutish
winds scraped by, unable to get a grip on the oystershell domes.
Slowly the giant descended from the biohaze in a shroud of
parasitic life-forms. The parasites puffed outward from the free
dancer and raced upward to the stormy atmosphere, their abandonment
clear proof of the animal's doom. The free dancer twisted its long
tendrils of shock floss upward as if beseeching its little riders
to come back.
When they didn't, the free dancer almost seemed to understand. It
gave off a last sad crackle, buckled like an accordion bellows, and
quite sharply dropped the last fifty feet to the ground.
Tanggg! Tang-tang! Tangggg - shutters closed all over the quarter,
just in time. The harsh sound echoed and continued longer than any
reasonable echo, into the city, onto the plain, to the mountains,
and rang there awhile.
Like a cattleprod touching flesh, the planet came up to meet the
dying free dancer with a sharp slap. At the first inch of contact
the creature heaved, then flattened to the trail's surface and
there gushed out its life. Electric-blue neon crackles engulfed the
corpse in a violent cocoon.
Again Nick Keller found himself reminded of old newsreels - the
crash of the dirigible Hindenburg - a giant lung collapsing into a
single great mercurial transfer of matter to energy, as all the
animal's stored power shot directly into the planet.
What a waste.
"Close the shutter! You'll be burned by the blast wave!"
"I need to see it."
Raw energy strobed between the huts. The uncontrolled natural death
of a free dancer could take a hundred people with it in a
population complex, or go without witness on some distant open
tundra.
The whole planet was a tundra. A metal tundra. Soot on silver on
pearl on ingot, with leaden shadows and pewter hills. The only
natural life was in the skies, and it came down only to
die.
This animal grounded on the outskirts of the City of the Living,
the oldest settlement on the planet, a cluster of knobby buildings
and dome huts secured with pylons rooted twenty feet into the
planet's mantel. Out there, in the "suburbs," were six or seven
scattered huts out by themselves. As Keller watched in morbid
fascination, the free dancer flattened right on top of one of the
huts. The energy transferred back into the planet, and an instant
later the blast wave blew through the city with a single deafening
bark.
The echo bonged like a big doorbell. Blinding disruption blossomed
across the open terrain.
Keller let the heavy iron shutter drop closed just in time, and
ducked. The dome thundered around him.
When the shaking subsided, he bolted to his feet and grabbed his
tricorder. "Come on! It landed on a hut!" "Keller, why do you do
these things?" He didn't wait. Braxan would follow him. She always
did.
Heat from the dead free dancer radiated through the metallic
streets and buildings with a vibrating thrum of harp strings.
Though he felt the heat, he was protected by the chain-mail sheath
over his own clothes and his tightly woven mail footwear.
The primary structural shape in the Living city was a dome. The
city looked like a huddle of shellacked mollusks. They were built
by inflating a free dancer's float gland, then spraying a composite
- which Keller's tricorder analyzed as some chemical soup that
hardened when mixed, along with a bunch of unreadable adulterants -
over the balloon frame. The result was, on average, a
six-hundred-ton house. The curvature could absorb hundreds of
pounds' pressure per square centimeter, which the weather
frequently tested.
Otherwise, there were a few towers and a few large storage
facilities. That's all.
The free dancer's dropping on a house with its shut-open caused an
implosive charge. Curiosity had gotten the better of somebody. The
people inside had made a bad bet - a free dancer could die a half
mile away, then in its final convulsion flip over and land right on
some poor slob's head.
Could've been me. Next time maybe I'll close the shutter. It's just
such a sight!
The carcass was now a huge pile of placemat-sized ashes crudely
recalling the shape of the dead animal, thickened by the spilled
and stir-fried contents of its guts - hundreds of pounds of
candleflies, now cooked to a paste. Keller plowed right into the
mess. Giant black flakes blew out of his way, then began to clog
around his knees as he went deeper into the fried remains. His feet
were gummed up in the candlefly paste. Behind him, hundreds of
people swarmed out of the domes to watch. A few helped push the
cooked flakes away from the imploded dome, but most held
back.
As he pushed through the hesitant people, Keller cast a glance
behind for Braxan.
She was there, right behind him. Her narrow shoulders shifted back
and forth under the shimmering foil tunic she wore. What it would
be on the other side of the gateway, he had no idea. Here,
everything was silver, ferrous, bullion, and plate. The planet was
one big ingot, hammered, pocked, or polished by constant storms.
Some unknown inner force had formed jagged inorganic mountain peaks
in the distance, but Keller's tricorder offered only basic
statistics and couldn't read beneath the planet's surface. Like a
pet dog in a strange house, it didn't act very happy
here.
Braxan stayed with him until he began climbing the dome's
ash-entombed ruins.
"Hold this!" He handed her his tricorder just before climbing out
of arm's reach.
"When will you understand?" she warned. "They've been
Anointed!"
"Don't be silly. Come up and help me."
"I shouldn't."
He glanced around for someone who might help and spotted two of
their neighbors, a pair of brothers. "Donnastal! Serren! Climb up
here! Help me pry this thing open."
The two teenaged boys looked around at the others, scouting for
disapprovals. Excitement got the better of them. They broke with
traditions and swam through the ashes toward Keller, who was now
about ten feet up on the crumpled dome, straddling the nearest
shutter.
The shutter wasn't latched, but only bent by the force of the free
dancer's frying-pan act. The hinges were crimped.
"Ready ... three ... two ... haul!"
Though his hands weren't strong enough, his foot behind the shutter
and the two boys pulling on the sides did the trick.
Donnastal and Serren were young, but on Metalworld a teenager was a
mighty commodity. Serren was wiry and Donnastal, though only
sixteen, was built like a shuttle-craft. Against all the precepts
and rules of their planet, these boys would take chances and do
what the stranger ordered. Keller wasn't beyond making use of a
little teenager hero worship.
The iron shutter rasped a god-awful honk and bared the glassless
window. Keller swung around on his hip and dropped into the
hole.
Inside he dug through what was left of the house and came up with
three people right under the shutter - one unconscious, one
moaning, one dead. The shutter was a 'light. Probably they'd been
sleeping and hadn't heard the alarms in time. Any minute they'd be
crushed by the weight of the shifting rubble. The Living called it
destiny, fate, random order. Keller didn't buy it.
He got the moaning woman up on his shoulder and called, "Donny,
reach down! Pull these people out and hand them to Serren. Good
boys."
He hoped they wouldn't hesitate. The Living carried fatalism too
far. An unintelligible mutter of protests squabbled outside, but
Donnastal appeared over his head and reached down. One by one, the
victims were hoisted out of Keller's arms and into the
open.
"Braxan, hand down my tricorder. Can you hear me?"
The instrument had a terrible time operating on this side of the
gateway. Half the readings were scatterbrained and silly. He'd
learned to take notice of sick blips that otherwise he would ignore
and to expect huge skips in data. The terrible moment came when the
instrument figured out what he wanted it to do, and reported,
clearly, nothing.
Keller turned off the tricorder. He leaned back against one of the
bent steel braces and closed his eyes. No one else buried under
this jagged, electrocuted mess ... around him, the ruined dome
structure groaned. Metal scratching against more metal.
Unsupported, it would soon collapse under the very weight of its
own materials.
Metal and more metal and more. For the first six weeks he'd hardly
slept a wink from the weirdness of the noise. Simple footsteps made
the ring of chains. A falling tool made not a thump or bonk, but a
jannnngggggg. He was living on a giant tuning fork.
No wonder these people dreamed of trees and moss.
What about Challenger? What were his shipmates His words disturbed
the people around them. Braxan noticed, even more than Keller did,
or a least cared more.
"Get your Grid mats," she said. "Spread the word for all hunters to
meet at the Feast plain."
The people broke up and hurried back into the city to prepare for
the hunt. Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring - their chain-mail
moccasins were like jinglebells anyway. Vibrations couldn't be
muffled here.
Braxan was uneasy giving the order to hunt, or any order. It wasn't
in her nature. She reminded Keller some of himself when he had been
suddenly spun into charge of a ship in crisis and a colony in
trouble, without the people he had come to depend upon. She was
alone too, without family. Braxan had lost all her relatives in the
last few hunts, a group of people who hadn't been blessed with many
children. Most women Braxan's age had a half-dozen children. Braxan
had none. Apparently the luck of the draw.
So Braxan was alone, except for the injured traveler she had nursed
back to health.
This would be the fifth hunt since Keller came through the gateway
and crashed the spinner out on the plain. Through weeks of Keller's
recovery, Braxan had provided both nursing and information. She had
wanted to go through the gateway more than either Riutta or Luntee,
and for that reason she had stayed - one of those old-order quirks
of caution.
"When you appeared in one of our spinners," she said, "we didn't
know what kind of being you were or why you came. You told us we
must use our stored energy to power more ships, to cross over
before the gateway closes ... that it is still time to go. Still,
there are many fears to this."
"Braxan, you have to keep believing." He clasped her arms and
bothered to look deeply into her eyes, hoping she would find the
truth in there. "This side doesn't want people. It never did. On
the big scale of time, eleven thousand years isn't that long. The
time of the Living is running out on this big ball bearing.
Lightning, rain, ice - on the other side of the gateway you can do
more than just survive. You can grow. You won't have to give up
thousands of people to the hunts. It's better there. It wants
life."
"I believe it's wonderful," she said. "I believe you. We'll keep
storing energy, and keep trying to convince Kymelis. If her voice
is with us, then we'll all go."
He smiled at her, but not because she was telling him what he
wanted to hear. She wasn't the youngest nymph on the planet or the
prettiest, but he liked looking at her. Her harsh features - a
sharp nose, thin eyebrows, high cheekbones, thin lips, and a chin
that came to a dimpled point - were offset by worshipful eyes like
two balls of hematite in a setting of platinum skin. She was a very
simple person, content with small comforts and controlled hopes,
yet she had warmed to Keller's tales of life on the other side in a
way that made him feel valuable.
Though she had no unique talents or wisdom or skills, she was
special because she had survived more hunts than all but two others
of her people. That made her the third Elder, the one Riutta and
Luntee had left behind. After so long with no word from Riutta and
Luntee, the Living had accepted two new elders. Braxan was now in a
new triumvirate of leaders for the Living.
There were Braxan, a one-eyed woman named Kymelis, and a man named
Issull, in that order of seniority. Braxan wanted to go through the
gateway. Issull intended to go through, but didn't think this was
the time. Since there was trouble in space on the other side,
perhaps another ten thousand years of preparation was
needed.
The middle Elder, one-eyed Cyclops, hadn't made up her mind about
what random order "wanted."
Three elders - a leadership in turmoil. One for Keller's way, one
against, and one vacillating. Kymelis knew hers was the swing vote,
but also didn't know whether to trust Keller, a stranger who had
soared through the gateway after the signal from the Anointed was
silenced. Was Keller the one who had stopped the signal? What had
happened to the Anointed? These many troubled months hadn't been
smooth skating for Keller or his message of welcome from the other
side.
Of course, one key factor was that Issull did want to go through
the gateway, as all their histories planned, but he didn't think
this was the time. That meant he could eventually be convinced.
Keller only needed two Elders to go his way.
'Time's running out," he murmured, more to himself than Braxan. "If
my multiplication's right, it's been almost thirty hours on the
other side. They can't hold the gateway open much
longer."
"I think you'll prevail," she said quietly. "My people listen to
you."
"Well, the Living don't waste. I'm a stranger, but I've got special
knowledge and skills. They can't ignore me ... it's not exactly the
same as listening."
"You are a champion of many here, especially the young ones like
Donnastal. He defies everything for you."
"Mmm ... that's because I'm the suave foreign substitute teacher.
What I am is the focus of conflict really."
"Our first leader, Ennengand, meant for us to go through. We have
invested generations in this. I still believe."
"But is Nick Keller the messenger?" he asked. "OF Cyclops isn't
sure."
Braxan's glossy eyes regarded him warmly as he came out of his
thoughts. 'There are some who say you treat me gently for the sake
of influence. So I'll go with you."
"Hey, hey ... don't blame the messenger." Keller grinned, caught
her hand, and pulled her up close. In a cold world, she was his
only warmth and therefore all the more precious. "You always wanted
to go to the other side. I didn't change your mind, did
I?"
"Random order sent you to us to tell us it's time to leave. Why
would you be here otherwise?" Like a silver bell on a cord she
swung in his arms, and appreciated him with her eyes.
"I'm glad you've survived," he murmured, "even if you have to bear
the burdens of an Elder." Usually he tried not to be so candid. But
for this moment, would a little selfishness hurt? "How do you stay
so nice in a place like this? You don't even realize how much death
breathes on this place, do you? It'll always be a subsistence
living here. If more resources appear, the population expands just
enough to make it subsistence again."
"We have enough to survive," she said.
"You have metal. Nothing else. No help from others, no neighbors in
space, no way to make medicine ... you live on candleflies and
legends of better places. People are afraid to form relationships,
children are pushed away by their parents, nobody dares to care too
hard... there's complete insecurity. You lose everybody you love,
or they lose you. The only thing in my culture's history, the only
parallel I can think of... is the Black Plague."
"You always speak of other colors," she said, steering him away
from his morbid subject. "We have darkest dark, this 'black' you've
shown me. I like to hear about the others. Red and green. Cobalt
and pumpkin ... very exotic names."
"They're exotic." He twiddled his fingers through her coppery hair.
"Not quite as exotic as you, I don't think." With his eyes out of
focus he hugged her and gazed at the silver dome over their heads.
"I wish I could remember... sometimes I dream in colors ... but I'm
afraid I might be forgetting what they really look like. Seems to
have been an awful long time..."
"Time - " She pulled away, her shiny eyes bright. "It's time for
the hunt. I have to be there."
"I know." He sighed. "You, me, coupla hundred other hunters, and my
trusty tricorder."
She smiled. "Again you'll take it onto the plain?"
"I have to reset it just before the capture. You know
that."
"You reset at the last hunt, and the one before, and before
that."
"Oh, I s'pose," he mumbled as he palmed the instrument. "Clears the
head ... electrical interference is my hobby now. I can compare
certain electrical readings. Y'know - research. Data acquisition.
Fun with numbers."
"On our world there is not enough electricity for you
already?"
"Hon, on your world there's enough electricity for dang near
everybody, dang near everywhere. If we could box it - "
He stopped himself, held back from telling her too much. These
people had survived in an impossible place by holding to some kind
of purpose. Civilizations had been doing that for a long time, but
this one took the method to an extreme. Keller knew he had to work
within their system. They wouldn't accept too much
rebellion.
"Stand right in front of me. Let me use you for - "
"A sensor anchor," she completed. "I know. You will 'read' me now,
and you will 'read' yourself on the plain, and later compare the
information. I shall stand better than anyone ever has
stood."
She squared her shoulders, spread her hands out, drew a deep breath
and closed her eyes, still smiling. Her hands, less a little finger
on each, were slim and feminine. Even the bitterness of evolution
and of life on this rugged world hadn't taken the girl out of this
girl. She didn't have much of a figure, but the simple foil sheath
made an enchanting envelope.
"Mmm, you're good at standing," Keller commented wryly. He finished
scanning her and turned the tricorder on himself for a quick sweep.
"Ought to do it..." Braxan pressed her hands to her gold-leaf
pixie-cut hair. Her hair looked brassy to him here. What it would
if look like on the other side - he had no way to guess. All he
knew was that her smile was friendly, her heart forgiving and
unsuspicious in a place of inclement legend, and she had started to
look pretty to him.
"I wish I could have you give the commands." She sank against him,
pressing her chin to his shoulder. "Why would random order select
such as me to be made an Elder?"
"When we go to the other side, you can be whatever you want.
There's no 'random order' there. You can be lots of different
things. All at once, if you want." He gazed at her. "What do you
want?"
It was like asking a cloistered novice to describe Mardi Gras. Her
lashless eyes tightened with the mystery he put before
her.
"I would like to see trees," she said.
"We have trees on Belle Terre. We're sowing sod too. Grass. I think
you'll take to grass between your little stubby toes down
there."
She smiled, but he had awakened a cautious streak. "Does color
hurt?" she asked.
Her innocence filled him with a whole new kind of responsibility.
Cupping her neck, his own hands were a bizarre computer-generated
pearly texture instead of their normal shade of Santa Fe.
Everything here seemed artificially animated. He'd almost forgotten
what a human really looked like or the kind of world he and all
life like him was meant to occupy. Was some inner part of him
expecting to be trapped here?
He slid his hands down her shoulder blades and solemnly promised,
"Color is one of the best things."
"Hunt! The hunt!" Cries from the streets shook them out of their
private moment. Local heralds were running through the streets,
summoning all those qualified to hunt. The same thing would be
happening in the other settlements.
Keller looked up and sighed. What a shame - a free dancer had just
landed here, but all its energy was lost. Hundreds of people would
soon die a horrific electrical death to tempt down more free
dancers in a controlled environment, so one could be killed and its
energy taken into storage.
"It's time to hunt" Braxan said, and pressed back, breaking their
quiet communion.
"Right," he acceded. "Let's buckle on our swash and participate in
chivalry at its weirdest."
The hunt plain was nothing more than miles of ferrous flats,
brushed to a dull sheen by wind and storms constantly battering
this planet. Lightning flashed overhead and the skies growled. The
biohaze, a shroud of primordial life surviving in the atmosphere,
flickered and swam and tumbled.
There were twenty thousand people or so on this planet, by Keller's
best reckoning. The low number was a sad clue. According to the
"old records' there had once been upward of a hundred thousand, all
descendants of the crews and passengers of those first two ships to
pass through the gateway, one Blood, one Kauld.
Nature was intolerant here. The planet couldn't support a
population. The Living were more devolving than evolving. Families
had fewer children, even though they produced as many as they
could. Women dutifully produced babies their entire adult lives, by
several men, to keep genetics from singularizing. They had
developed an Eskimo-like manner of cooperative tribal structure, to
be sure children were cared for if their adult relatives didn't
survive the hunts, and to make sure nonhunting families were fed.
There was food sharing and a strict hierarchy of distribution, the
top of which involved the families of people who had been "chosen"
in the hunt. Perfect, to the dreamer's eye.
Reality was far less kind. Several times, the histories told, this
system had broken down. Communalism would support only the very
smallest of communities.
This inhospitable planet was a test case. When there proved no
other way, communalism's answer had been to make the community
smaller, not bigger.
They survived, but didn't thrive. Starvation, competition, failure.
Generation after generation, the pattern repeated itself. The
population surge to five hundred thousand had only happened once,
and like a flare quickly collapsed. Now they were on their way to
another wave of harsh limitation. Their numbers were shrinking. The
metal planet would never let them flourish. It didn't want
them.
So they clung to their legend about going home. It was their single
enduring plan. They wanted to go. They planned to go. Unless they
were "chosen" in the hunt of a free dancer or "Anointed" - killed
by accident or illness - they worked toward the goal of eventually
leaving this tin pot.
The plan's most recent leg had been a mighty monumental one - to
take thousands of Anointed home, then send a signal for the rest of
the people to follow. That signal had never come. Instead, quite
another signal had been sent. The Anointed had been summoned down
from their pedestals all at once, not by destiny but by Nick Keller
in his determination to save his side of the gateway
first.
Taking the unexpected "destruction" of the Anointed as a message,
the Living had hunkered down once more to the business of
collecting energy from the free dancers, but this time with the
idea of another ten thousand years of work before trying again.
They had used up almost all their stored energy to open the gateway
and hold it open, then power Riutta's spinner fleet. They had to
hustle now, hunt more and more often, to gather enough energy to go
on surviving. But Keller had come. He wanted them to use their new
power stores in a different way - to go through the gateway en
masse, as they had originally planned.
He was the only one who knew the clock was ticking to a much nearer
alarm. Challenger and the grave ship could hold the gateway open
only a few hours on their side, more than a year on this
side.
A year... sounded long, but wasn't. The Living had been waiting
years on this side for Riutta and Luntee to send a summons, then
instead received a cutoff. They supposed the Anointed had met with
tragedy in space. After hundreds of generations, nothing had come
of this. They had accepted two new Elders, along with the one left
behind, and they had begun again. More than half of these people
would die in a stepped-up schedule of hunts, to provide enough
energy for the other half to keep existing on this brittle ferrous
ball.
What could Keller do? Send a pigeon through the gateway and tell
Shucorion to throw another dead guy on the fire?
The gateway was still open. He clung to that.
He clamped his lips on his thoughts as he and Braxan worked side by
side, along with hundreds of hunters from all the settlements, to
fit woven gum segments into place and seal the seams. The heavy
mats, woven with patterns and messages and tributes, would prevent
a grounding. Ironically, the mats protected the free dancers from
the planet, but didn't protect the Living from the free dancers.
The Living had learned long ago that they had to let the free
dancers ... well, there was no nice way to say it... let them
feed.
Rather quickly, the mats were puzzled together into a gigantic
circle of a size perfect for its task, big enough that the free
dancers would be able to sense the Living crowded upon it, but not
so big that the Living couldn't race for the edges when the time
was right. Keller had seen four other hunts and had participated in
three. A more ghastly spectacle he had never witnessed.
He got a shudder up his arms as he remembered, and fully realized
again what was coming. Hundreds of healthy innocent men and women
would strip down to their birthday suits and plunge out onto the
plain, then wait for the free dancer herd to "see" them - whatever
that meant - and come to the trough. Against all instinct, the
Living had learned to simply stand there and be "chosen" in an
electrical feeding frenzy that defied description.
The mental pictures alone turned Keller's stomach. The people would
stand with their faces up, fear clearly shown, as the monsters came
down, and wait for the Elders to decide the free dancers had eaten
enough that they would return next time. Finally, the scramble back
to the perimeter while the slaughter went on ... desperate hunters
would pull on their silky chain-mail tunics so they would be
protected from the pyrotechnics, snatch up their arc spikes,
pulpers, clamps, nets, and race back to harvest one free dancer for
the reservoir of energy and the gizzard full of candleflies it
provided.
Not exactly Home on the Range.
Overhead, enormous shapes painted shadows upon the hunt plain. Heat
blew downward from the skies, a sure sign that the free dancers
were clustering above. A fine hail of ice particles bitterly
pummeled the back of Keller's neck, his head and arms, as he worked
on the gum mats, so hard that he fell to both knees. His hands were
cold, but as much from the inside as the outside. Courageous people
would be dying soon, and horribly.
But not him, and not Braxan. He needed to live, and he needed her
to live - "Look!"
"What is it?" someone shouted.
"A spinner!"
Keller raised his hand to shield his face from the ice particles
and scanned the ugly sky. Beside him, Braxan hunched her shoulders
and turned her unprotected face upward.
In the sky a tiny dot grew quickly larger, a bug-shaped metallic
vessel with forward mandibles and a bulbous stern. A spinner from
Riutta's fleet on the other side of the gateway - and quite
literally the last thing Keller expected to see.
Who was piloting it? Was someone bringing a message for him? Had
Riutta abandoned the gateway? Had one of the Living crew broken
away? A hammer blow of worry hit him.
To a planet that hadn't entertained a visitor in ten thousand-plus
years suddenly came the second visitor in a matter of months.
Things were changing here - a harbinger now landed upon the plain,
a much better touchdown than Keller had managed when he came
through.
"Uh-oh ..." he uttered. "This can't be helpful."
"Perhaps it's one of your friends," Braxan suggested.
"Bet it ain't."
At first Keller didn't recognize the man who stepped from the
spinner. The smooth silvery skin and dark eyes threw him off. On
the other side of the gateway, the skin of the Living revealed its
mottled pattern and their eyes were - different.
"It's Luntee, alive!" Braxan chirped, pushing on Keller's shoulder.
"This will put to rest the idea that you may not have been honest
with us! There were rumors that Riutta and Luntee had died on the
other side!"
"They're fine," Keller hoarsely confirmed. "I told you they were
fine ..."
He found his feet and pushed his way through the crowd of hunters.
They knew him and were curious, so eagerly they parted before him
and Braxan, until he was face-to-face with Luntee.
Though they both appeared like Halloween versions of themselves,
they recognized each other.
"Couldn't take it, huh?" Keller flatly asked.
Luntee squared off with him, unsurprised and obviously prepared.
"You don't belong here. We don't belong Outside. We should never
have gone."
Aware of the hundreds of people staring at them like a swarm of
bees waiting for a flower to open, Keller held himself in check and
went for information.
"What's the status on the other side?"
"They think you're dead," Luntee announced. "Almost all the
Anointed are gone. Time is running out."
Keller held up a hand. "We've been getting ready. We've been
storing energy to power the transport ships. All the Living will be
able to go through the gateway and settle in the Sagittarius
Cluster."
Braxan appeared beside him, almost between him and Luntee. "The
plan is troubled now."
He looked at her. "Why?"
She and Luntee watched each other as lightning flashed on their
faces. "Luntee has returned to us and he is an Elder. There can
only be three Elders. Luntee is senior to Issull. Issull is no
longer Elder. Luntee's voice will now be heard with the voice of
Kymelis."
She might've been trying to be kind or cautious, but everyone here
knew what she meant.
The matter broadcast itself when Luntee spoke up again. "We will
not go through," he declared. "We will destroy all the transporting
vessels and we will live here, as we are meant."
"Meant?" Angry, Keller flopped his arms. "Nobody's 'meant' to live
on this pie plate! There's no natural life here at all!" He turned
to the crowd and implored, "The gateway is still open. That's a
clear message. My friends and Riutta are holding it open. They're
still waiting for us!"
Luntee held up his hand and pointed to the skies. "It remains open
because his friends are forcing Riutta to push Anointed after
Anointed into the processor! Wasted!"
Keller spun back. "Don't talk like that. They're not being wasted.
They're saving you, all of you, all you people, if you'll just go
through. Riutta knows that now - "
"Riutta is ill in the mind!" Luntee gasped. "You made her weak. The
Anointed are almost gone. The gateway is soon and forever to
close!"
"And you didn't want to be trapped on the other side," Keller
accused. "Why not? Tell your people the truth. You couldn't adapt.
You didn't like it over there, you found it uncomfortable, and you
like being an Elder. Riutta wanted you to spend your life in space
and you can't stand the idea. Here, you're a big fish in a small
pond." His finger leveled at Luntee's chest, at the chain-mail shut
he couldn't punch with a phaser. "At least admit that this is about
you, and not about your people."
Braxan started to say something, then looked at Keller and asked,
"What's a fish?"
"What's a pond?" Luntee asked, but in a mocking way. "I hate it
there. I'm saving my people - "
"You're saving yourself. You won't take the time to adjust or let
us help you. Did Riutta know you were escaping back through the
gateway?" Keller plowed on, "Or did you break away on your own? I'm
surprised Shucorion didn't knock you out of the sky."
Luntee's expression turned hard. "They think you're dead! Take the
spinner! Go away from us and put their fears to peace! And leave us
alone!"
"That's exactly what you'll be," Keller said. "Alone." The crowd
was nervous, doubtful, and suddenly scared. Their fear crackled as
clearly as the electrical frenzy high in the sky, and just as
palpable. Push!
"You like that, don't you?" he pressed on, and actually stepped
closer to Luntee, to put the focus where he wanted it. "The
difference between you and all these other people is that you want
to stay here. Everybody else is debating when to go through. You
don't want to go at all. Tell them the truth."
"I speak truths," Luntee said. "I know how long you've been here.
We have enough to go, but only if all our energy is used. Is this
not also true?"
Keller started to speak, but all he could do was agree. Better not
to do that.
Luntee took the silence as a cue. "If we go to space and the
gateway closes before we go through, then we all die. All our
energy will be used up. We'll freeze and starve by thousands. We
have a fresh store of energy, to be used in powerful vessels to go
through the gateway to that place of horrors, or to be used to make
life better here. More heat, more building, new ways to hunt -
"
Feeling his influence slip, Keller took care to keep desperation
out of his tone of voice. "But most of the Living want to go
through the gateway, as Ennengand intended. Isn't that true?
Braxan, isn't it true?"
Her eyes were solemn, communicating to him that his argument was
pointless now. "There are three Elders," she said. "If Kymelis
decides to stay - "
"The old rules are too old," he argued. "Three people shouldn't be
making decisions for tens of thousands of others - not this kind of
decision. All of your people - each person has the right to decide
whether or not to go."
"No one knows how to make this kind of choice."
"I do!" He turned and met the eyes of as many individuals as he
could. "I surely do. This place is appalling. The best you can ever
do here is make life barely bearable. Your legends came down of a
wondrous place polluted by people who struck off into space. Okay,
I'll tell you the truth - things aren't perfect on my side. It's
not all wonderful, but it's mostly wonderful. The other things -
we're working on all of it. You folks, you're right to stop looking
for simple ways to live. You have a spectacular technology here,
your metallurgy and your free dancers, and how you've learned to
use them ... what a gift! You could improve life for billions of
people, and you won't have to suffer anymore. You can be warm and
have food - no more hunts, no more orphans - growing, breathing
planets, flowers and grass and color - think of it and brace
up!"
He paused, and watched the crowd. They were like a pack of gray
wolves staring down a deer that wouldn't run. They had all the
power and possibility, but didn't know what to do.
"Keller speaks with the voice of Ennengand," Braxan defended. "We
should go through. I have always said it and I'm very
smart."
He glanced at her, charmed by her ability to find a joke at these
kinds of moments. Suddenly he felt stronger.
"The Elders speak with separate voices," Luntee reminded. "If no
two Elders agree, then random order will declare which voice shall
be final."
"Hold it," Keller snapped. "What's that mean?" His own question
gave him a shiver.
Lowering her chin, Braxan watched Luntee cannily. "It means there
must be a hunt decision."
A rumbling ball hardened in Keller's stomach. "What's a hunt
decision?"
"Watch the biohaze! When the first free dancer descends, all
hunters will retreat except for the two challengers. One will be
chosen. The other, the voice left behind, is meant to be
heard."
Luntee, who had been reserved, skittish, and overwhelmed on the
other side of the gateway, boldly addressed the gathering of
hunters - numbers well into the hundreds. He spoke up sharply, and
something about the acoustics of this metallic world carried his
voice almost to the horizon. Keller had found that out the hard
way.
Since all the hunters were gathered anyway and there were free
dancers in the sky, the hunt decision would happen here and now.
Just as well, wasn't it? To get all this over with? No time to
think twice?
The judge would be Cyclops - Kymelis - the impartial Elder.
Impartial? Vacillating, really. She was a stocky woman with many
children, her right eye and right ear destroyed in some hunt
catastrophe. Whether or not she coveted control or just accepted it
was a mystery. Since becoming an Elder involved nothing more than
surviving more hunts than any but two others, there was no
political parrying or ambition in play. Being an Elder,
status-wise, was nothing more than jury duty or a rotating
chairmanship, except that big decisions were made for big numbers
by these entirely random leaders.
Of course, until very recently, the decisions hadn't been so very
big.
Kymelis was also dangerously superstitious. She was waiting for a
"sign" that this was the right time to abandon their ridiculous
planet.
As if there hadn't been enough signs lately! Belle Terre Trail,
Blood Junction, Crossover Crossing, Keller Corners - "What if both
die?" Keller asked. "If both are chosen?"
"Then neither is meant to be heard," Kymelis explained. Her bulky
shoulders changed shades with the violent storms overhead as the
free dancer herd noticed the hunt plain and began to gather. "There
will be two new Elders."
"Wait - wait a minute. What do you mean by 'two new Elders'? If I'm
chosen, Braxan still - "
"You will not be on the hunt plain. Braxan will be."
"This is between Luntee and me!"
"You're not an Elder," Luntee said. "Braxan is the dissenting
Elder."
"Yeah, but you're not taking her out there."
"Yes."
"No. This is between you and me."
Luntee shrugged. "Braxan is your voice. A hunt decision is made
with Elders."
"There's got to be something better," Keller insisted, "something
involving me. I should be able to stand for my own purpose and take
my chances."
Around them the hundreds of hunters shifted and bobbed with anxious
curiosity. None dared cheer his words or even speak up, though he
saw cheers in many eyes. Rules were rules and a lenient crowd
wouldn't change them, but the effect wasn't lost on any of the
three Elders. After all, if none of these people wanted to go
through the gateway, there wouldn't be a problem, would
there?
Kymelis's remaining eye shifted back and forth, as if scanning the
old records and laws and rules and their details.
How could such a crowd be so quiet? It was like being watched by
owls in the night woods.
"She can select a surrogate," Kymelis concluded.
Keller went up on his toes. "Great! Perfect - " He swung to Braxan.
"Pick me. Come on, hurry up. I'm right here."
She looked at him, at Kymelis and Luntee, and back at
Keller.
"Come on," he urged, twitching like a kid. "Let's go.
Pick me."
"I can't," she murmured. "You are the next Ennengand. You'll find a
way."
"But if you - if you're chosen, Luntee's side wins!"
She gazed at him with miserable adoration. "And if you are chosen,
there will be no one strong to speak for going. I'm not strong
enough to lead. Whatever happens, you must remain to lead the
Living. I will stand on the plain."
So she did believe in him. Too much.
"Braxan will go onto the hunt plain for the decision," Kymelis
judged.
"No - oh, no!" Keller's head started to pound on the inside and
down the back of his neck. He pushed forward toward Luntee and
might've hit him - he might have - except Donnastal and Serren held
him back.
Maybe they were smart. Maybe there was some little law about
hitting an Elder.
What about insulting one?
"You're devious, Luntee," he tempted. "All right, you don't like me
- fine. You want me to pay - that's fine too, but don't make me pay
with her life!"
"These are our laws." Something had stabilized in Luntee's voice.
He sounded much more confident than he had on the other side of the
gateway. "You have come here and must live within - "
"I will," Keller blurted, "if you go out there with me, not with
her. Let me be my own voice!"
A light came on in Luntee's eyes. "Very well," he complied. "You
will be on the hunt plain."
Why had that gone so well?
Braxan shook her head frantically, suddenly overtaken by a new
horror. Why?
A groan rose in Keller's throat. "What a low-down trick."
Eminently satisfied, Luntee spoke again to him, clearly enough to
be heard well around.
"You, Nikelor, will go out as my surrogate. Braxan will represent
the voice to go. You will represent me and the voice to stay.
Random order will decide which voice remains to be heard, as it has
for five hundred generations."
Keller fought his own inner arguments and tried to add up the
situation. If Braxan lived, her "voice" remained and Ennengand's
ideal of going through the gateway would prevail. But Luntee could
easily muddy the waters, play on Kymelis's doubts, and make the
clock run out. He could stall enough to let the last Anointed go
into the processor and the gateway to finally close, locking the
Living to their fate on this side. Braxan wasn't the type to fight
him hard enough.
In fact, Luntee had Keller better than even Luntee realized. Keller
had only his one ace, his big secret. He could arrange for one or
the other to survive on the Feast Grid. He could do it
artificially.
Now what? Admit to these brave hunters that he'd been hedging his
bets, immunizing himself and Braxan with tricorder scans? Tell them
how different the energy acted on either side of the gateway? Just
as the grave ship's power wouldn't read in conventional sensors,
the tricorder acted differently, and had different
effects.
Cheating ... His own actions left as bad a taste in his mouth as
the scans did in the free dancers', but he had a lot to stay alive
for. If he didn't influence them, didn't complete his mission,
these people would stay here, would probably shuffle along for a
few more generations trapped in this hellish place, and probably
die off. Without Keller, there would be no one to speak for going
to the other side, right now, while they had the chance, while the
gateway was still open.
He had to at least appear to be playing by their rules. He had to
participate in their society, or they wouldn't respect
him.
Now he couldn't even play his one ace. If he did, the free dancer
would descend, but wouldn't choose either him or Braxan. He could
save both their lives. Then what? Another hunt decision? And
another one, until random order was satisfied?
Or if random order defied a choice, then the Elders would decide.
By now Keller knew Kymelis well enough - she wouldn't decide. She
would want to wait for a sign or a clue that would never come.
Luntee would win, because time would run out.
A sly glint lit in Luntee's eyes as he watched Keller. On the other
side of the gateway Luntee had seemed a minor player, hesitant and
unclever, hovering on the sidelines as Riutta made the decisions.
On this side, all that changed. He was not only playing the laws,
but daring to make hunches about his adversary and doing it with
the rocky nerve of a riverboat gambler. If Braxan were chosen and
Keller lived, representing Luntee, then Luntee's voice was meant to
be heard. Luntee's trick was flawless. It left Keller no good way
out, no way to win.
The wind tore at Keller, at them all. The sky began to crackle and
grow lower. Giant shadows moved across the grid mats.
"All I have to do is throw myself before the free dancer, and
Braxan's voice remains," Keller announced. "I swear to do that,
Luntee," he vowed. "I won't let your voice be heard."
A singular moan swelled through the crowd at this shocking
declaration. Approval... shock... everything. He had to
push.
He'd guessed right - nobody had ever said such a thing among the
Living. He was glad to shock them. He needed their respect. All of
the people here, and on the other side of the gateway.
His hand was on his tricorder, but he dared not use it
now.
Around him, Luntee, Braxan, and Kymelis a sea of hunters rounded
their shoulders against the bitter wind, their soft link shirts
ablaze with reflected lights from overhead.
So the free dancers would decide. Except that the tricorder would
have more influence. Braxan was already immunized. Keller hadn't
done himself yet.
And now, he wouldn't. Braxan had to live. Luntee's voice couldn't
be allowed to prevail. Keller would stand on the hunt plain, and
take his chance the hard way. No tricks.
"Crackle!" one of the hunters called. "There's crackle above! We
have descent!"
The hunt plain turned gunmetal gray under snaggle-toothed sparking
from overhead as a blizzard of candle-flies panicked and shifted in
giant tides. The free dancers had begun scooping them up, causing
the bio-haze to boil. A sense of imminence crawled over every
shoulder.
"Descending!"
The cry was picked up and transferred through the hunters all
across the plain. It rang like an echo.
Overhead, the first free dancer released its heat and floated down
toward the Grid to take its meal. Above it came others, also
sensing the crowd of hunters.
Nick Keller's fingers were stiff with cold, his neck stiff, teeth
gritted, legs aching. The hunt was a perfectly nightmarish
experience, both physically and mentally. Everything
hurt.
Around them, the hunters began to scatter, to fill out the Feast
Grid in the way determined by centuries of desperate efficiency,
the best way for the dirigibles above to spot them and be tempted
down. Billions of candleflies caused a sparkling cloud to fog the
Feast Grid.
With his mind racked at the probabilities - dying out here right
now, for one - Keller moved away from Braxan. When they were alone
on the field, when the free dancer came for him, he didn't want to
be anywhere near her. Strobe lightning and candlefly fog damned his
vision. The nearest free dancer must almost be down!
He closed his eyes and stripped the tricorder strap off his
shoulder. His fingers were cold, slow. Fear balled up in his
stomach. He hadn't bet on this as his last act, but it would have
to write its own poetry later. Maybe he'd be a legend someday, like
Ennengand.
Suddenly he stumbled and fell to one knee, yanked hard by a force
on his left arm. His tricorder flew from his hand, its strap raking
his arm as he grabbed for it.
"Hey - hey!"
He twisted, still on his knee, off balance. Over him, Luntee was
aiming the tricorder directly at him.
"Hey!" Keller shouted. He lunged, but fell short.
The tricorder chirrupped and set up the electrical interference,
with its short-range focus aimed at Keller. A few seconds ... the
deed was done.
Now he would never be chosen! He would give the free dancers a
burning mouth.
Too far away to change anything or know what to do, Braxan called
through the curtain of panicking candle-flies. "Keller! What are
you doing! The free dancer is descending!"
With a shove Keller vaulted to his feet, knotted his fists, and
would've struck Luntee if they had been two paces closer. "How'd
you know? How could you possibly know about that?"
Luntee held the tricorder as casually as a Starfleet yeoman.
Somehow he seemed to regret what he was being forced to do. "I have
lived here a lifetime. Energy is our tonic. Now I've been to the
Outside and I know all things behave in strange dances."
He dumped the tricorder on the mats, turned, and raced away from
the center of the Feast Grid. He didn't realize Braxan was already
immunized.
But now Keller was immunized too. If the free dancer chose neither
of them, time would run out before another decision could be
hammered into place. Luntee would still be able to keep his people
here.
Pretty simple. One-dimensional, like this pewter pot they lived
on.
"I'll be damned," Keller grumbled. "All right, I can play too." He
turned and shouted over the noise from overhead. The free dancers
were getting closer. "Kymelis! Kymelis, wait!"
In a clique of hunters, some of whom were her family, the stocky
Elder squinted her one working eye at him. "More? But we have
descent!"
She pointed to the sky, to the giant bulbous animals growing larger
and larger.
"This decision is too important!" Keller called. "There's only one
way to really be sure. Luntee will stand on the plain with Braxan
and me. All three of us take our chances."
"Why should this be?" Luntee demanded. "Order has already been
established!"
Keller turned to Luntee and suddenly there was no one else in the
universe but these two men and their challenge. "If your voice
remains, there won't be any doubts. Braxan will do what you want. I
will too. That's my promise to the Living."
Through the haze of heat waves and candleflies, Kymelis and several
hunters hurried back toward the center of the Grid. She was already
thinking. Her one eye was crinkled with puzzlement. "What is this
way of thinking?" she asked.
"Why should I stand with you?" Luntee demanded. "You are my
surrogate. Braxan represents the hunt challenge. All is
correct!"
"Don't be so tied to your rules that you make a big mistake."
Keller peeled off his mail shirt and tossed it to Donnastal. It
flushed and eddied like water between them. "I'm ready."
Luntee hunched against the flash and wind and turned to Cyclops. "I
reject this! He uses our rules against us!"
"He's afraid of real random order," Keller pointed out. " Kymelis
looked up at the lowest free dancer, a truly horrifying sight no
matter how many times experienced. "All things come from random
order," she said, and looked at Luntee. "If you're afraid, then I
side with Braxan and we will go tomorrow."
Her single eye fixed on Luntee.
Rain began to pummel the confused crowd. The hunters were nervous,
glancing up. Pellets of ice were melting in the heat of the first
few free dancers as they came down directly over the hunt plain,
long strands of electrical floss snapping like a woman's hair in
the wind.
All the hunters were on the plain, with Keller, Braxan, and Luntee
at dead center They had left their nonconducting mail shuts behind
and thus would be unprotected from the savage tendrils of
floss.
"Clear the plain!" Kymek's shout was carried dutifully through the
throng, and the hunters raced for the perimeter to pull their mail
shirts back on - there to stand and watch as a great decision
occurred on the Grid. For a woman who had trouble making a
decision, she was done with this one.
"What happened?" Braxan called. With Luntee still standing on the
plain, she didn't understand the change. She was afraid - that
showed clearly enough through the tides of candleflies.
"Stay there!" Keller called. "It's the three of us now!"
"Why!"
"Just stay put!"
Luntee had no choice but to stand his own ground as the first free
dancer came down and the hunters flooded off the Grid. As far as
anyone else knew, this was a fair fight. Only Keller and Luntee
knew otherwise.
The shock floss moved toward Braxan, a maneuver which Keller had to
battle in his own heart. He wanted to run and protect her, but he'd
already done all he could, with his tricorder. Luntee never
bothered to look at Braxan.
Of course - he must assume Keller would already have immunized
her.
Yes. Of course.
The tendrils snapped around Braxan, but quickly retracted at the
"taste" of her.
Luntee knew, for sure now, that he was the only vulnerable person
here. "I thought you were not so brutal," he charged. "You know who
is chosen now."
Just between the two of them, Keller offered a nod of
understanding. "Yes. But it's your life against all these others.
One person's life - one selfish person - against a whole community
of lost souls."
"Then you sentence me?"
"One more death in this place?" Keller told him bitterly. "You
know, it's almost a joke. That's the way it is. I'm sorry for it.
I'm sorry!"
He was shouting. No choice now.
The free dancer came down, confused because a moment ago it had
seen a herd of hunters and now it was searching for any at all. An
easy target - but this time there was no call to ready the arc
spikes, nets, pulpers, reactor clamps, or other equipment to reap a
harvest of candleflies or to transfer energy from the captured free
dancers. All those had been left behind, on the perimeter of the
Feast Grid. Today the free dancer would descend to feed and instead
be the jury in a very strange case.
Keller summoned all his resolve to stand firm while everyone else
was running off the Grid. The emotional suction was overwhelming!
Despite a year in this place, despite the work of the tricorder, he
had to fight hard against the pressure of
self-preservation.
He drew power from Braxan's determined face and narrow hunched
shoulders as she stood her own ground thirty paces in front of him.
His thoughts were lost under the scream of shock floss and the
puffing of the giant over his head.
Several paces from him, Luntee squinted and raised his arms to
shield his face, but he was doomed.
Floss snapped and sizzled around them, between them. Keller
couldn't see Braxan. In his mind he knew she was immunized and that
he was too, that the free dancer would taste them and bully them,
but probably leave them alone and snap up Luntee into its
electrical processors. Even so, instinctive terror overrode what he
knew in his mind. As he gritted his teeth and tried to see Braxan,
perfect panic rose in his guts and he pushed up all his resolve to
keep from bolting. If nothing else, these people needed to see him
not running away.
He couldn't see Braxan anymore. His only duty now was to move away
from Luntee and let fate take its course. He had to live, to take
these people home.
A step, another step - he began to shift sideways away from Luntee.
A dozen feet over their heads, the lowest free dancer roared and
screamed and flapped its floss. Tendrils slapped the Grid mats
viciously.
Luntee closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and prepared to lose.
But he never ran, never even attempted to protect himself or change
what had been choreographed either by random order or by Keller's
manipulation.
Keller ducked the tendrils and the electrical crackle and watched
Luntee a couple more seconds before he finally snapped.
"Aw, hell, why aren't I rotten? Braxan, down!
Braxan!"
"Where are you!"
"Never mind! Get off the Grid! Get off! Run!"
He swung around, cupped his hands at his mouth, and shouted to the
crowd on the perimeter. "Donny! Arc spike!"
Donnastal was ready. The boy seized the nearest spike, raised it to
his shoulder, and heaved it like a Roman pilam. The fifteen-foot
spear flew poorly, but enough to sail over Luntee's head toward
Keller. In a maneuver that would've been impossible a year ago,
Keller bunched up his body and propelled himself into the air. With
his high hand he knocked the spike out of its path. It cartwheeled
once and thumped to the mats ten feet from him.
He came down - it seemed to take a month - on one knee, and rolled
until his hands made contact with the spike. The long device leaped
into his grip. He hugged it, rolled again, and turned the spear-end
upward. With one hand he found the bitter end, cupped it, and gave
a mighty shove.
The body of a free dancer was fifty percent guts and fifty percent
hot air. The long spike punched through the hide with skill honed
of thousands of hunts over thousands of years. Like a fish sealer,
it knew its job to perfection. Oily glue poured over Keller's
hands, but he didn't stay to receive the rest of the
spillage.
Rolling to his knees, he kept a grip on the end of the spike and
endured the deafening whine of the injured free dancer over his
head while he plunged at Luntee. He caught the other man with the
point of his shoulder and drove him down. Once on top of Luntee,
Keller dug his fingers into a seam between the gum mats until his
fingernails scraped metal.
The planet's surface!
With all the strength in his lean and muscled arm, he hauled back
on the woven gum. With the other hand he grounded the arc spike's
blunt end into the now-bared spot of surface metal and rolled for
his life.
A conflagration erupted over them. The gum mats coiled around him
and Luntee. Keller kept rolling until the mats were tight around
them both in a rubber coffin.
Crushed against him, Luntee made a strangled shout and hammered his
fists against the gum.
"Stop it! Lay still! I mean lie still!"
He couldn't hear himself over the giant frying pan that sizzled
around them. The free dancer was grounded. All its stored energy
flashed into the planet in a single, instant, roaring display of
pyrotechnics and raw voltage.
The gum mat became instantly hot. From outside the lightning flash
was so bright the opalescence even penetrated the layers of woven
rubber. Keller crammed his eyes shut. His skin was burning!
Luntee's body jolted against him. They were frying!
Cramped tightly against him, Luntee let out a long cry of panic.
His elbows tucked tight, Keller buried his face in Luntee's body
and determined not to make a noise. The rubber box vibrated and
jumped with them in it, slammed down, jumped again, rolled, as they
were nearly cooked inside. Every hair on Keller's body stood up and
spun. His back and legs tightened inside the rolled mats, trapped,
yet every muscle contracted as if he were running full
out.
Grounded!
What he felt on his skin, though his body, he saw as an ultimate
picture of destruction in his mind. The free dancer had made direct
contact with the planet - instant, complete energy
transfer.
Indescribable heat had soon filled up his brain and broiled away
his thoughts. Time lost meaning. He was aware only of a terrible
hammering from outside, as if the rubber roll and its pathetic
inhabitants were instead the head of a mallet.
The planet surged up under the great electrical bladder and sucked
back what it had once given in some weird ancient trade. When the
last crackle sounded, Nick Keller had stopped trying to handle the
moment and simply allowed himself to be slaughtered. All the more
surprise when he found himself alive.
With his aching hips he changed the balance inside the coiled mats
and forced himself and Luntee to roll free. Like Cleopatra falling
out of the carpet, the two men suddenly sprawled free.
Keller tried to move his legs, but his arms shifted instead. For
five or ten seconds he worked to retrain his brain on the use of
limbs. When he found his legs, he crawled to Luntee. Hot, alive -
and not melted. The worst they each suffered was a bad
sunburn.
Around them and rising several stories on one side was the cooked
mess that had once been the free dancer that nearly killed them,
now a mountain of blackened flakes.
"Why - why did you - " Luntee's gasp ended in a weak
cough.
Keller crawled to him, pushed him flat on the still-sizzling gum,
and sat on him. "Shut up a minute. Braxan! Braxan!"
She didn't answer... then, she did.
"Keller? Keller! Where are you!"
He couldn't see where she was through the flying ashes and powdery
remains of billions of toasted candleflies.
"She's alive," he growled down at Luntee. "So are you,
chickenhawk."
"Why?" Luntee choked. "Why would you save me?"
Possessed with sudden ferocity, Keller grinned and snarled at the
same time. "Because I don't have to accept the verdict of random
order. Those aren't gods in the sky. They're animals. The free
dancer chose you to die, but I choose for you to live."
Luntee stared up at him. Behind the frothing hiss of the barbecued
free dancer they heard the cheer and rave of the hunters who were
just now coming to understand what had just happened. Donnastal was
the first to appear. Braxan came behind him, her narrow face
crumpled with fear. Next were Kymelis and her family, Issull and
his brothers, Serren by himself, and two by two, three by three the
rest of the hunters pushed through the mountain of ash and fibrous
smoldering flesh until there were hundreds crowded on the melted
segment.
Shaking with aftershock and satisfaction, he managed to stand up.
With Donnastal on one side and Braxan on the other, he glared down
at Luntee.
"Random order is finished here," he announced, without any
particular force. The word would spread itself. "I'm in charge now.
We don't belong here and we're not staying. Finally, blessedly,
we're gonna saddle up and leave this moodless world."
Frigate Challenger, Bridge The twenty-ninth hour "This is like
waiting for somebody to come out of a coma, except with every hour
there's less brain activity. You know what's coming, don't
you?"
"Clam up, Ring. Just clam up."
"Flirt."
"Both of you ... this is unhelpful." Shucorion didn't enjoy
interrupting Ring and Bonifay in their prickled communion, or in
particular conversing at all. On the main screen, a view of the
grave ship and the gateway's flicker had become a torturous mock,
and somehow worse than anything he had ever endured. A large
statement, considering all.
Nick Keller was in a horrible place and to their nearest
calculation he had been there more than a year. What could possibly
take so long? Was he dead? Was he trapped?
On the sci-deck, Savannah Ring maintained constant contact with
Riutta on the grave ship, monitoring the energy output to the
gateway. As Shucorion watched her shoulders tighten and her body
shift from foot to foot with nervousness, he realized how deeply
this tragic decision dug into them all.
"We're down to the last chamber of zombies," she reported, sensing
his gaze. "Any one of those corpses could nourish a power system on
our side for months. But to keep that gateway open, we're pouring
them in like penny candy."
She didn't look down at him, or acknowledge that he heard
her.
Shucorion clasped his hands tightly, very tightly. What should he
decide, and when?