Текст книги "Precipice"

Автор книги: David Mack

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

55

“I just wanted to congratulate you on staying out of jail,” Pennington said as he and T’Prynn strolled along a path through Fontana Meadow in Vanguard’s enormous terrestrial enclosure.

“It would be more appropriate to commend my legal counsel,” T’Prynn said, missing the gist of his sentiment as Vulcans so often did. “Her labor secured my relatively light sentence.”

Pennington sighed. “I simply meant that your plan to work your way back into Starfleet’s good graces was a success.”

“True. Though I might not have succeeded without your help.” With a sidelong look she added, “I am in your debt, Tim.”

He reacted with mild surprise. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you call me by my first name.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

They passed by a cluster of off-duty Starfleet personnel playing soccer on one of the lawns near the buildings of Stars Landing. Two men, a brawny human and a lanky Vulcan, stutter-stepped around the black-and-white-checkered ball, vying for control until the Vulcan seized possession and broke away on a charge toward his opponents’ goal, trailed by the other players.

T’Prynn asked, “So, will you be staying on Vanguard now that Starfleet has dropped its charges against you?”

“For a while. I just signed a lease on a new apartment.” Searching the Vulcan woman’s face for any hint of what might be going on under its surface, he asked, “And you?”

“My successor, Commander ch’Nayla, has requested I remain on Vanguard under his supervision,” she said. “I am not permitted to share any details beyond that.”

Pennington nodded. “I understand.”

They stopped in front of the meadow’s ornate fountain. High above their heads, its towering plume of water dispersed and became a fine mist that bent the enclosure’s ersatz daylight into a rainbow. The cool spray kissed Pennington’s face as it fell to the ground, drawn by the pull of artificial gravity.

He sensed T’Prynn was hesitating to say something, but he waited for her to find the right words in her own time. After several seconds, she turned halfway toward him. “Tim … my superiors would like to know how much of our shared experience from the past year will be appearing in your future published writings.”

It was not an unexpected question.

“None of it,” he said.

She looked perplexed. “I do not understand. You are not sworn to secrecy, and as a civilian you have the right to speak and publish freely. Why suppress such information now?”

He tucked his hands in his pockets and smiled at her.

“Call it a wedding present.”

56

Where did this year go?

That question nagged at Dr. Ezekiel Fisher as he went about his evening routine. In a few days he would turn another page on the calendar and mark the passing of another cycle of time.

And take another step toward death,he brooded.

Morbid thoughts plagued him with increasing frequency now that he was alone on the station.

Diego Reyes was more than a year gone; his service record had listed him as dead until a recent report from T’Prynn upgraded his status to missing in action.

It had been almost as long since Ambassador Jetanien had departed the station on an indefinite leave of absence. Though the Chelon was normally talkative to a fault, he had been adamantly secretive about his destination and his reasons for leaving. Fisher had never been close with Jetanien, but they had shared a bond because of their mutual friendship with Diego.

Most cutting of all was the absence of Fisher’s pseudo-protégé and former attending physician, Dr. Jabilo M’Benga. Despite knowing for more than a year that the young doctor had requested a transfer to starship duty, it still had filled Fisher with disappointment when he’d heard M’Benga wouldn’t be coming back.

Onward and upward,he reminded himself as he downloaded that day’s personal mail to his data slate.

While the handheld device retrieved his electronic correspondence from the station’s computers, he sauntered into his kitchen nook and poured hot water from an old-fashioned kettle into a mug he had prepared with a few tablespoons of cocoa mix. Tendrils of vapor twisted up from the rich, creamy beverage. A soft beep from the data slate confirmed he had new messages waiting to be read.

It was the usual smattering of crap: solicitations to consider starting a private practice on one backwater rock or another; newsletters from various medical journals to which he subscribed, or from associations he had been foolish enough in his youth to join; a reminder that his sixty-fifth high-school reunion was coming up; a letter from some young know-it-all who had found a picayune error in one of Fisher’s old journal articles and just had to bray about it, not realizing Fisher himself had publicly corrected that same error a decade ago; and so it went.

Then he saw it, the grain of wheat hidden in the chaff: a new message from Jabilo. Fisher smiled. Speak of the devil.

He carried his cocoa to the main room of his quarters, settled onto the sofa, and rested his feet on his coffee table as he started reading the welcome missive.

Dear Zeke,

I meant to drop you a line sooner, but the last several months have been jam-packed with vintage Starfleet

SNAFUS

.

First, in January they recalled me to Earth from Vulcan because they said they had a starship billet for me. Well, it was the same old Starfleet story: “Hurry up and wait.” I hopped a ride back to Earth on a frigate called the

Tremina

, but when I checked in at Starfleet Medical in February, they said the billet was already filled.

So guess what they did next?

They sent me back to Vulcan.

I got the impression I might be there a while, so at the end of March I accepted a medical-research position at the Vulcan Science Academy.

Don’t fall asleep on me, old man. This is where the story gets interesting.

In June the

Enterprise

made a port call on Vulcan. Around the same time, there was a rash of homicides inside the Vulcan Academy Hospital. It was a huge scandal. I’m sure you read all about it on the newsfeeds.

In July I was asked to ship out with a Vulcan medical team that was helping the

Enterprise

crew treat a plague outbreak on the Vulcan colony of Nisus. I won’t bore you with the details of how we ended up containing the outbreak; you can download the official report from the Starfleet Medical database.

The upshot is that between the homicide investigation and the mission to Nisus, I made a strong impression on the

Enterprise

’s new CMO, Leonard McCoy. He made a formal request to Starfleet Command to have me transferred to the

Enterprise

, ASAP.

Naturally, I was then sent back to Vulcan and told that McCoy’s request would be “processed with all due haste.”

That was in August. By October I’d given up all hope of seeing the inside of the

Enterprise

ever again.

Skip ahead to mid-November. Some admiral wakes me up one morning at oh-dark-thirty and tells me to pack my gear and get on a fast-warp transport RFN, no questions asked.

Seventy-two hours later, I’m on Coridan. Turns out Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan had suffered a cardiac failure while en route to the Babel Conference. By the time I arrived the matter had been dealt with, but I guess nearly losing a VIP during a major diplomatic mission finally convinced Starfleet Command that having a Vulcan-medicine

specialist on the

Enterprise

might not be such a bad idea, after all.

Talk about fortuitous timing: a little more than two weeks after I joined

Enterprise

’s medical staff, its half-Vulcan first officer, Commander Spock, got himself shot in the chest by a primitive projectile weapon during a landing mission. It was a close call, but he pulled through.

In many respects, Commander Spock is a remarkable individual. And just between us ol’ sawbones, I think one of the nurses is hopelessly in love with him. I’d give her some advice if I wasn’t having so much fun watching her make a fool of herself.

Anyway, it’s time for me to cut this short. We’re in some kind of mad hurry to get to Deep Space Station K-7 all of a sudden. If this turns out to be anything interesting, I’ll send you an update as soon as I’m able.

And believe it or not, I do miss you and the rest of the team at Vanguard Hospital—but nothing compares with being out here on a starship, seeing the galaxy with my own eyes. Every day proves the old cliché is true: wonders never cease.

Be well, Zeke. I’ll keep you in my thoughts.

Your friend,

Jabilo

Fisher set the data slate on the coffee table and exhaled a deep and tired breath. He was happy for Jabilo, but the younger man’s joie de vivreonly made Fisher more aware of how much his own appetite for life was waning with age.

For the hundredth time that day he flirted with the notion of tendering his resignation with immediate effect. After all, what was holding him on Vanguard? What was there for him to do that some younger surgeon with a security clearance couldn’t do better? Why go on bearing the burden of dire secrets?

You know why, you old coot,he admonished himself. You made a promise.

He had told Diego he would look after Rana Desai, that he would be a friend to her in Diego’s absence. She was the only person on the station who loved Diego more than Fisher did. For her sake he would stifle his complaints and play the part of the stoic. As long as she stayed on the station, so would he.

Lord help us,he mused with bittersweet humor, the things we do for love’s austere and lonely offices.

57

T’Prynn stood alone on the stage, the fingers of her right hand barely grazing the keys of the piano.

It had been more than an hour since the last of the club’s patrons had been shown the door by Manón, its exotically beautiful alien proprietor. Now that the after-hours cleanup was finished, Manón shooed her employees out of the cabaret.

Transfixed by the details of the baby grand piano—the shine of its polished keyboard, the subtle scratches in its lacquered frame, the reflections of the stage lights on its propped-open lid—T’Prynn only half-listened as Manón closed and locked the club’s front door. She remained still, gazing at the bars of black and white beneath her hand as she listened to Manón’s footsteps echoing in the empty dining room.

“Everyone’s out,” Manón said. The elegantly dressed woman’s coif of multicolored hair was styled in a helix that curved from her left temple to the back of her right shoulder. Looking up at T’Prynn with her emerald-green, almond-shaped eyes, she asked, “Would you like me to bring you some tea?”

“No, thank you. That will not be necessary.”

Manón replied, “All right. Turn off the stage lights after you finish. The back door will lock behind you on your way out.”

T’Prynn nodded. “I will. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“It’s my pleasure. Call it a welcome-home gift.” At that, the pale-skinned alien woman slipped away and exited to the kitchen, leaving T’Prynn to face the piano in solitude.

She pulled back the bench a few centimeters and sat down. Placed her hands over the keys. Tried to find her way back to a melody, to a starting point.

There was only silence.

Moving with trepidation, she plunked out one flat note. The sound of it was jarring to her ear. For the first time in her life the instrument felt alien to her. Distant. Unknown.

I remember the notes,she assured herself. I know the songs. Forcing her hands to work from rote memory, she pressed them into service. She struck all the notes in the right order, but it was a struggle to find the grace in them, to feel the attack in the keys, to hear the sustain in the chords.

The melody had become hollow. Empty.

There was no beauty in the music.

She let her hands fall from the keyboard and rest at her sides. Her mind was quiet, her thoughts calm and ordered.

For fifty-three years the katraof her dead fiancé Sten, whom she had slain in the heat of the kal-if-feeto escape an arranged marriage, had haunted her mind. He had brought her nothing but pain and madness. His psychic attacks had clouded her logic and inflamed her passions, eroded her control and dulled her conscience. It had taken her total, public collapse to expose her affliction and deliver her into the hands of Dr. M’Benga and the mystics of her childhood home in Kren’than, with whose help she’d finally cast out Sten’s malevolent spiritual essence.

Free of Sten’s torments she no longer felt any temptation to succumb to base emotions, but she also no longer felt the sweet stirrings of music. Her emotional equilibrium had been purchased at the cost of her only artistic gift.

T’Prynn closed the keyboard cover. Pushed back the bench. Smoothed the front of her red uniform minidress as she stood. Drew a slow, deep breath and let it go.

She thought of all she had sacrificed in the name of duty and self-preservation: her lover, her sanity, her career. If the price of her repentance had to be the loss of her music, she was hardly entitled to protest.

So be it.

Bidding a silent farewell to her muse, T’Prynn turned her back on the piano. Then she stepped off the stage and back into the shadows, where she belonged.

58

December 29, 2267

Abandoning the most boring staff meeting of his life, Admiral Heihachiro Nogura quick-stepped out of his office into Vanguard’s operations center. A shrill Yellow Alert klaxon whooped once in the normally hushed circular compartment.

Nogura hurried up the stairs to the supervisors’ deck. “Commander Cooper,” he called out, announcing his arrival. “Sitrep.”

Cooper looked up from the Hub. “Sorry to interrupt your meeting, Admiral, but we’ve picked up an armed Orion merchantman on approach. Bearing three-eight mark five, range one million kilometers.” Dropping his voice as Nogura drew near, Cooper added, “It’s Ganz’s ship, sir—the Omari-Ekon.”

“Give him credit for having a pair,” Nogura said. “I told him if he ever came back I’d put a hole in his ship, and I meant it. Raise shields, arm and lock all phaser banks, and order Endeavourto stand by for rapid deployment, just in case.”

“Aye, sir,” said Cooper, who turned and swiftly relayed the admiral’s commands to a team of junior officers.

On the lower level of the operations center, the station’s other senior personnel filed out of Nogura’s office. Jackson, Desai, and ch’Nayla followed Nogura up to the supervisors’ deck, while chief engineer Isaiah Farber commandeered a science-purposed workstation for his use.

Ambassador Akeylah Karumé—a striking, colorfully attired, ebony-skinned human woman who had temporarily been promoted into Jetanien’s role as Vanguard’s senior diplomat– seemed content to remain removed from what was transpiring around her. She walked to an open area of the operations level between the supervisors’ deck and the enormous wraparound viewscreen that dominated the high, curving bulkheads.

For the moment, the center viewscreen displayed an image of Ganz’s ship, which was cruising directly toward Vanguard.

Nogura was impatient to know what the hell Ganz was doing. “Hail them,” he said, and Cooper delegated the task to the senior communications officer, Lieutenant Judy Dunbar.

The curly-haired brunette started to key the command into her console but stopped. “Admiral,” she said, “the Omari-Ekonis already hailing us.” She swiveled her chair to face Nogura. “It’s Mister Ganz, sir. He’s asking to speak directly with you.”

Looking at his senior staff to gauge their responses, he was met by a series of near-identical wide-eyed stares. He frowned. “Put him on-screen.”

Buttons were pushed, and one of the center’s three massive screens was filled with the dark green face of the locally notorious Orion crime lord, Ganz. He flashed a smile of immaculate white teeth. “Admiral,”he said. “There’s no need for you to aim weapons at my ship. Our shields are down, and our weapons are not charged. We come in peace.”

“You shouldn’t have come at all,” Nogura said. “I warned you what would happen if you brought your traveling crime spree back into my jurisdiction.”

Ganz lifted his broad, thick-fingered hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Let’s not resort to threats when I’ve gone to the trouble of bringing you a peace offering.”

Intrigued, Nogura lifted one eyebrow. “And what might that be?”

The burly Orion gestured to someone off-screen. He leaned to his right, out of frame, and returned holding up his hand.

Resting in his palm was a perfectly clear, twelve-sided crystal roughly the size of a human skull. It was identical to the Mirdonyae Artifact, except it appeared to be empty.

“I believe you already have one like it,”Ganz said. “But I hear you might be interested in acquiring another.”

Nogura was so livid he could barely move. When he tried to speak, his jaw felt as if it were wired shut with anger. Recovering his composure, he asked in a tense, low voice, “Where did you get that?”

His question broadened Ganz’s grin. “That,”said the crime boss, “sounds like an invitation to begin negotiating my ship’s return to a semipermanent docking slip on your starbase.”

“The hell it is,” Nogura said. “I’m not going to let you dictate terms to me, Mister Ganz. If you want to discuss financial remuneration for your discovery, fine. But if you think that hunk of rock gives you some license to—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,”grumbled someone on Ganz’s ship who shouldered his way into the frame beside the crime lord. The angle of the transmission adjusted to compensate for the new visual subject, and Nogura’s iron jaw went slack as he saw who was standing beside Ganz.

Diego Reyes scowled at Nogura and said over the comm, “He already knows you have standing orders to acquire anything and everything related to the Shedai, and at all costs, so cut the shit and just make a deal with him already.”

Nogura coped with his surprise by mustering a thin, taut smile. “Well,” he said to Reyes, “this is certainly going to make things more interesting.”

Then he heard Lieutenant Jackson whisper to Captain Desai, “I think you owe me dinner.”

59

Ming Xiong lowered the second artifact onto a new octagonal interface pad inside the Vault’s central experiment chamber. Even through the gloves of his hazmat suit, he could feel the icy coldness of the crystal polyhedron.

“Stand by to patch in the baryonic array,” he said to Dr. Marcus, who was in the chamber with him and also garbed in bright yellow hazmat gear. Their voices sounded flat and mechanical through their suits’ external speakers.

She checked the new interface’s connections to the lab’s consoles and then gave him a thumbs-up. “All set.”

He checked the readings on the command console for the second artifact’s interface. “Looks good so far,” he said. “Let’s connect the chroniton gauge.”

Though he was trying to stay focused on their checklist of tasks, he felt the weight of two dozen pairs of eyes staring at him and Marcus while they worked. The delivery of the first artifact’s empty twin—by a Tholian expatriate named Ezthene traveling on Ganz’s ship, no less—had set the lab abuzz with rumor. Xiong was hardly immune to gossip’s pull; he was just waiting for the right moment to ask Dr. Marcus what she’d heard.

That moment seemed as opportune as any other.

“Is it true Diego Reyes is on Ganz’s ship?” he asked.

Marcus scowled at him from behind a fall of her blond hair. “Keep your voice down,” she said. Whispering, she continued, “Yes, it’s true.”

Xiong echoed her hushed tone. “Then why isn’t he back in custody?”

“Apparently, as long as he stays on the Omari-Ekon, he’s outside Starfleet’s jurisdiction.” She flipped some switches, and a few more indicators on the interface panel turned green. “What’s next on the list?”

“Tachyon scanner,” Xiong said. “It should be on bus three.” As Marcus verified the connection, he lowered his voice again and asked, “If Ganz’s ship is docked here, how can it be out of our jurisdiction?”

“Because the Federation has no extradition treaty with Orion,” Marcus replied. “Interstellar law gives Ganz the right to grant Reyes asylum aboard his ship, and that’s exactly what he’s done. As long as Reyes doesn’t set foot on the station, Nogura can’t touch him.”

Shaking his head, Xiong said, “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s the law.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Closing the lower half of the pedestal’s access panel, Marcus said, “All set here. How’s the board?”

“Green lights all the way,” Xiong said. “Ready to release the safeties and bring main power online, on your order.”

“Let’s do it,” Marcus said. She stepped around the pedestal to stand beside the young anthropology-and-archaeology officer. “I think we should run a full range of material tests. Since this artifact is empty, we might be able to get a clearer picture of its composition and internal structure.”

“Sure,” Xiong said as he began connecting the new pedestal to the Vault’s primary power grid. “I also want a look at its ambient energy signature. Having an empty artifact will let us make some baseline measurements that might tell us all kinds of things about the Mirdonyae crystal.” He sighed. “I just wish we could get Ganz to tell us where he got this thing. Until we find out where these things come from, we’re no closer to solving the riddle of who made them or why.”

Marcus gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “All in good time,” she said. “Right now, this new artifact is a gift. Let’s appreciate it for what it is instead of cursing it for what it’s not.” She threw an encouraging smile Xiong’s way. “Besides, sooner or later Ganz will need another favor from Nogura. When that happens, I suspect he’ll use the origin of these crystals as a bargaining chip.”

Xiong smiled and nodded in agreement. “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.” He entered the final sequence of commands for activating the new interface. “Taking the last safety offline now. Main power is up and steady.”

“All systems appear nominal,” Marcus said. “Let’s go ditch these canary suits.”

“Roger that,” he said, following her to the airlock and radiation-containment portal for the experiment chamber.

A few minutes later they had stowed their hazmat suits in the equipment room. Xiong smoothed his blue uniform tunic while Marcus pulled her white lab coat back on. There was a tiny glint of mania in her eyes as she asked, “Ready to see what our new prize can do?”

“I can hardly wait,” Xiong said.

They returned to the main area of the lab and situated themselves behind a transparent safety barrier set back from the experiment chamber. “First,” Marcus said, pushing buttons and flipping switches, “let’s see if it reacts when we apply power to the Mirdonyae artifact.” She turned a dial and fed a stream of charged particles into the original artifact, which pulsed with eldritch light only a few meters from its inert twin.

“Nothing so far,” Xiong said.

“All right. Sending power to the second artifact …”

For one brief moment the new polyhedron was surrounded by a golden halo, and the first artifact’s aura of fear melted away.

Then the Red Alert klaxon wailed, and all Hell broke loose.