Текст книги "Precipice"

Автор книги: David Mack

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

3

February 18, 2267

Red desolation stretched across the horizon and filled Tim Pennington with an aching loneliness.

He stood alone in the shadow of an automated water-collection station on the edge of the desert outside ShiKahr, the capital city of Vulcan.

Behind him, the giant primary star of 40 Eridani—which, during his months-long stay on Vulcan, Pennington had learned was called Nevasa—dipped beneath the jagged peaks of the Llangon mountain range, while its binary companions trailed a few degrees above it. To the south, the monstrous orb of Vulcan’s sister planet, T’Khut, dominated the sky.

His journey to this remote node in ShiKahr’s municipal water-supply network had not been easy. He’d left his short-term lodging before dawn. The city, which was laid out in a circular pattern with boulevards emanating from its center-like spokes on a wheel, had a mass-transit system that was easy to navigate, and it had carried Pennington as far as the outer perimeter. There he’d hitched a ride on a hovercar that was traveling to some small settlements out on the Shival Flats. The driver had let him off approximately ten kilometers from the collection station. From there, Pennington had hiked alone up into the rocky foothills.

A nagging inner voice told him he was wasting his time. That he should not have come alone, no matter what had been asked of him. That perhaps he should have told someone where he was going before he’d left ShiKahr.

Too late now,he lamented.

An arid sirocco whipped up a frenzy of sand on the plains below his vantage point. Soon it would spawn a sandstorm that would grow as it moved east and scour the city throughout the night.

He shook his head, disappointed in himself. Great, now I’m stuck out here. Why don’t I ever learn? Always following my gut, never using my head. That’s how I get into these cock-ups.

Pennington had been scheduled to leave Vulcan weeks ago. He was beginning to wish he had done so.

Then he felt the slip of parchment in his jacket pocket and remembered the peculiar encounter in the ShiKahr Spaceport three weeks earlier that had persuaded him to stay …

“I’ve got good news and bad news, Tim,” said Dr. Jabilo M’Benga as he emerged from the bustling crowd of Vulcans and assorted aliens in the ShiKahr Spaceport.

Pennington looked up from his data reader, on which he had been perusing the latest headlines from the Federation News Service. “What’s the word?”

The Starfleet physician gave a small frown. “The bad news: I can’t go back to Vanguard with you.” A smile of elation broke through his mask of pretend gloom. “The good news is the reason why. I’ve been recalled to Starfleet Medical on Earth pending a transfer to starship duty.”

With a fraternal slap on M’Benga’s shoulder, Pennington said, “S’great news, mate! If you can find us a pub on this dustball, the first round’s on me.”

M’Benga shook his head. “Sorry, can’t.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I have less than an hour to throw my gear in a duffel and beam up to the Treminabefore she ships out.”

“Well, you’d better get movin’ then,” Pennington said. “I’d hate for you to miss your ride on account of me.”

They shook hands. “Thanks for coming to Vulcan with me,” M’Benga said.

“I didn’t do anything,” Pennington said with a small chuckle. “Nothing useful, anyway.”

“You never know.” M’Benga let go of Pennington’s hand and took a step back, apparently eager to start his journey. “I’ll drop you a line as soon as I hear where I’m getting posted.”

Pennington nodded. “I’ll be back on Vanguard in a couple of months. Might be a little hard to reach while I’m in transit.”

“Sure,” M’Benga said, edging back another step. “But stay in touch, right?”

“Absolutely,” Pennington replied, knowing it was an empty promise. He waved to M’Benga. “Godspeed, Jabilo.”

“Good-bye, Tim.”

M’Benga turned and jogged away through the crowd on his way to an exit. He moved with the kind of energy that belongs to people who have something worth running to.

Heaving a tired sigh, Pennington plodded across the spaceport’s broad atrium. Its soaring arched ceiling made the young journalist think of red stone ribs joined by a crystal membrane the color of rosé champagne. It was shortly before noon, and all three of Vulcan’s suns were visible high overhead.

The air inside the spaceport was cool by Vulcan standards but still warmer than Pennington preferred; he was grateful for its lack of humidity, however. Vulcan had made him appreciate the saying, “Yes, but it’s a dry heat.”

As he walked toward a row of automated travel-booking kiosks, he reflected on how he’d come to Vulcan months earlier. It had been almost a year since he had witnessed the emotional sundering of T’Prynn, the former Starfleet Intelligence liaison to Starbase 47, in the aftermath of the terrorist bombing attack on the Starfleet cargo transport Malacca. Moments after the cargo ship had erupted in flames, T’Prynn let out an anguished scream and collapsed.

Remanded to the medical care of Dr. M’Benga, a human physician who had specialized in Vulcan medicine, T’Prynn had languished in a coma for months. Finally, M’Benga had persuaded Starfleet to allow him to transport T’Prynn back to Vulcan, in the hope that an ancient ritual grounded in Vulcan telepathy might hold the key to her recovery.

For reasons that even he still found opaque, Pennington had asked to accompany M’Benga and T’Prynn to Vulcan. He had asked himself several times what he was really doing there, and each time the answer eluded him.

His actions weren’t driven by affection—of that much he was certain. Several months before her breakdown, T’Prynn had sandbagged him; she had used phony sources to feed him a story about the Tholian ambush of the U.S.S. Bombaythat despite being true had been seeded with enough doctored evidence to discredit it and him. Apparently not content with sabotaging his career, she’d tried to blackmail him with evidence of his extramarital affair with a female officer who had died on the Bombay.

He owed her no favors, no allegiance, and no forgiveness. So why in God’s name had he traveled hundreds of light-years to sit by her bedside as some Vulcan mystic pulled her back from the brink of her own personal hell? He still didn’t fully understand how she had become the victim of a rare form of psychic possession by her former fiancé, whom she’d slain decades earlier.

Clutching the mandala she had given him as a token of her gratitude, and that he now wore on a coarse hemp lanyard, Pennington remained at a loss for answers.

A masculine voice said, “That’s an interesting medallion.”

Pennington stopped and turned to face the speaker. It was a Vulcan man dressed in a hooded beige robe. His face was tanned but still had a greenish cast. He wasn’t a youth but not yet middle-aged. Beyond that, Pennington found it difficult to gauge the ages of adult Vulcans based solely on appearance.

“I’m sorry,” Pennington said, stalling while he got his bearings. “What’d you say?”

“Your medallion,” the man said, gesturing with his chin toward the mandala resting on Tim Pennington’s chest. “It is quite unusual. How did you acquire it?”

The manner in which the man asked his question made Pennington uncomfortable. “A friend gave it to me.”

“Odd,” the man said. “Such rarities are usually bequeathed only to family members.”

Pennington broke eye contact and tried to sidestep the Vulcan. “You must be mistaken.”

Blocking his path, the Vulcan said, “It comes from the commune at Kren’than, does it not?”

At the mention of T’Prynn’s native village, a technology-free retreat populated by mystics and ascetics, Pennington froze. He suspected the man was not really interested in the medallion. Facing him, Pennington was wary as he said, “Yes, it does.”

“As I thought,” the man said.

The Vulcan handed him a scrap of fragile parchment that had been folded in half. As soon as Pennington took hold of it, the stranger walked away at a brisk pace and blended back into the earth-toned sea of robed Vulcans crowding the spaceport.

Pennington unfolded the note.

There were three things written on it: a set of geographic coordinates, a precise time, and a date exactly three weeks in the future.

He folded it and put it in his pocket.

His mind was a flurry of questions. Who was this Vulcan who’d asked about the mandala? Why had the stranger given him this information? What did it mean?

It was too good a lead to pass up. Something was afoot, and Pennington had to know what it was.

His return to Vanguard would have to wait.

The shadow cast by the water-collection tower stretched eastward and vanished into the edge of the approaching night. Lightning flashed in the west, a harbinger of foul weather. Something wild roared in the darkness and sounded much closer than Pennington would have liked.

He checked his watch, which had been synchronized with ShiKahr’s master clock. It was one minute before the time written on the parchment he’d received weeks earlier.

As he stood and listened to the wind, he considered for the first time that perhaps the note was a warning of an attack—and he had foolishly placed himself in its crosshairs. The trail to the tower was shrouded in darkness now that the suns had set, but nonetheless Pennington considered making a run for it.

The alarm on his watch beeped twice.

A hand grasped his shoulder.

He yelped in surprise and spun around.

A tall, lithe figure stood before him in a brown desert robe whose cavernous hood was draped low, concealing the person’s face.

“Right!” he shouted. He pulled the folded note from his pocket and waved it accusingly. “Now that you’ve spooked me half to death, would you mind telling me why?”

The stranger drew back the hood. It was T’Prynn.

She met Pennington’s stare with a humble look.

“You’re the only one I can trust. Please help me.”

4

February 18, 2267

Diego Reyes hoped he was dead. He stank as if he were.

His chest expanded by reflex; he sucked in sultry air with a sound that was part yawn, part gasp. Then he gagged on a mouthful of bitter medicinal slime.

He spat it out and coughed. Bits of phlegm from someplace deep in his chest flew out of his mouth.

Feeling a rising urge to vomit, he rolled to his left but collided with a solid barrier. It was smooth and metallic. He gripped the edge and convulsed with heaves.

When the spasms in his diaphragm stopped, he opened his eyes. At first all he could discern was a shadowy red glow. Then his eyes focused, and he saw he was lying in a coffin-shaped pod inside a spartan room that had the hallmark of a compartment on a starship.

Standing around the pod and scowling down at Reyes were a trio of Klingons dressed in military uniforms. These were a different breed of Klingon from those with whom the Federation had been dealing lately. These men had prominent cranial ridges extending almost halfway to the tops of their heads. They wore their wiry black hair in thick, loose manes.

One of the Klingons pointed a small device at Reyes. The gadget buzzed and whirred for a second. The man checked its readout and muttered something guttural in the Klingons’ native tongue. One of the other Klingons nodded but kept his unblinking gaze trained on Reyes.

Reyes returned the stare and asked, “Where am I?”

The one glaring at him replied in heavily accented English, “On the I.K.S. Zin’za. I am Captain Kutal.” Lifting his chin at the other two Klingons, he barked some orders in tlhIngan Hol.Reyes felt at a disadvantage without a universal translator.

Kutal stood back as his two subordinates grabbed Reyes by the arms and lifted him out of the pod, naked and dripping in viscous goop. They dropped him onto the grated deck. He landed hard on his hands and knees and winced in pain.

For a moment Reyes considered standing up but thought better of it. They might take it as a challenge,he realized. And I’m in no shape for a fight. He looked up at Kutal. “What happened to my ship and crew?”

The question seemed to amuse Kutal. “You mean the Nowlan?” Reyes nodded in confirmation, which only broadened Kutal’s jagged-toothed grin. “First of all, MisterReyes, the Nowlanwas not yourship. You were aboard her as a prisoner. Second, they were of no use to us, so they were destroyed.”

“Not by you,” Reyes replied, recalling the unusual vessel that had attacked the Nowlan. “Who’d you get to do your dirty work this time?”

“The same petaQpu’you hired to sabotage my ship in the Borzha II spaceport. Or did you think I’d forgotten?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reyes lied, “and you won’t get away with this.”

All three Klingons roared with laughter. Kutal bent down and slapped one callused hand on the back of Reyes’s neck. “We already have. It’s been weeks since your transport was blown to bits. As far as Starfleet’s concerned, you’re dead.”

Reyes shook free of Kutal’s hand. He glanced at the coffinlike metal cylinder in which he’d awoken and realized it was a hibernation pod. Turning his irate stare back at Kutal, he said, “So, do I have youto thank for my life?”

“Hardly.” Kutal spat on the deck between Reyes’s hands. “Had it been up to me, you would have died on the Nowlan.” The Klingon captain snapped orders at his men, who lifted Reyes from the deck and stood him upright against a bulkhead. Then Kutal said to Reyes, “We’re told you Earthers enjoy something called showers. You smell like you could use one.”

Kutal nodded to his men.

One of them lifted a hose attached to the bulkhead opposite Reyes. The other turned a valve and pressed a button.

Freezing-cold water sprayed from the hose, dousing Reyes. It hit him like a blast of ice-needles, stinging his skin. He lifted his hands to guard his face and turned sideways. The frigid stream slammed against his rib cage and thighs. When he turned away from it, the hideously cold torrent scoured his back raw.

It stopped. Through the desperate rasps of his own breathing, he heard runoff water dripping through the metal deck grates to the gutter below. Chilled to his core, he shook and swayed like a weak tree in a storm.

More orders from Kutal; Reyes was given a towel. He dried himself. Kutal’s men gave Reyes some clean clothes: underwear, a dark gray coverall, and shoes. He donned the drab utilitarian garb while his captors watched.

They escorted him out of the compartment at gunpoint. Moving through the tight corridors of the dimly lit vessel, they passed crewmen who eyed Reyes with contempt but said nothing. Reyes felt like a piece of prized livestock: valued up to a point but basically ignored.

They descended a series of ladders and arrived at the brig. Kutal ushered him into a cell and activated the force field as soon as Reyes stepped over its threshold. Reyes turned to face Kutal, whose parting words gave Reyes his first inkling of what was going on. “Be grateful,” the captain said. “Someone high up wants you alive and unhurt.”

The three Klingons departed, leaving Reyes alone in his cell. He eyed its gray-green walls, solid deck plates, and uncushioned slab of a bunk. The lavatory was just a simple seat platform that extended from the wall when called for and retracted into the bulkhead when not in use.

Cozy,he mused with weary sarcasm.

From his point of view, the attack on the Nowlanhad lasted only a few minutes. Before the attack, he had been in a cell on the Nowlan’s lower deck. Now, after being conscious for less than fifteen minutes, he was back in a cell.

He was about to decide he’d broken even when he remembered the last thing he’d been doing before the Nowlanwas ambushed. He’d been reading the interstellar bestseller Sunrise on Zeta Minor,and he’d just gotten to the good part.

Lying on the bunk and folding his hands behind his head, he let out a disgruntled sigh.

Crap. Now I’ll never find out how that story ends.

5

February 19, 2267

The nocturnal sounds of Vulcan’s desert hills had Tim Pennington on edge. From the ever-closer shrieks of a felinoid predator known as a Le-matyato the echoing cries of carrion birds that T’Prynn said were called lankagar,the darkness resounded with animal hungers.

“There is no need for concern,” T’Prynn said, her voice almost a whisper. “That is the mating cry of the Le-matya. If it were hunting us, we would not hear it until it attacked.”

“Hardly comforting,” Pennington said.

T’Prynn detoured off the trail to an unusual-looking rock formation. “Follow me,” she said.

Pennington accompanied her into the ring of tall stone slabs, which had become weathered and broken over the course of millennia. Standing in their midst, Pennington realized the slabs were menhirs, hewn by ancient Vulcan hands and arranged in a circle at the foot of the L-langon Mountains.

For a moment, he wondered if T’Prynn was indulging in some moment of mystical reverence, perhaps following some tradition of venerating elders, or meditating on the words of Surak. He watched as she reached out to a boulder, pinched its surface, and pulled away a blanket that bore a desert-camouflage pattern.

What had seemed to be a rock a moment ago now was two beige backpacks filled with gear. “Take one of these,” T’Prynn said. She picked up a pack and helped him put it on. Turning away from him, she said, “Now please assist me.” He hoisted the other pack onto her shoulders.

“These should have everything we need to reach the other side of the mountain range,” she said, “as long as we ration our food and water.” She folded the camouflage blanket and stuffed it into one of the outer pockets of Pennington’s pack. “We will need this later.” Then she walked out of the circle of stones and back to the trail.

“Hang on,” he said. His raised voice rebounded off the rocks with alarming clarity. “We’ve been walking for hours. Aren’t we making camp soon?”

She turned back. “We have been walking for precisely fifty-six minutes since our rendezvous at the water-collection tower. And we must continue walking for another seven hours and twenty-nine minutes. At that time, we will have exactly thirty minutes to set up camp before daybreak.”

Without waiting for him to reply, she resumed walking. Not wanting to be left by himself in the middle of the desert outside ShiKahr, Pennington hurried after her. “You could’ve bloody warned me before I came out here that I’d be walking all night.”

“If I had, would you have come?”

“At least tell me whywe have to walk all night.”

“Because the lower temperatures and absence of direct solar radiation will enable us to use less food and water than we would and walk for longer consecutive periods than we could in daylight.”

As usual, there was no questioning her logic.

They trudged ahead into the mountain pass. Pennington stayed close behind the Vulcan woman.

During their first hour of hiking, he noticed she was limping slightly. As the wind-carved spires of rock seemed to grow taller on either side of them, the trail became deathly quiet. In that silence, Pennington heard T’Prynn fighting for breath.

As they clambered over small mounds of loose rocks that tumbled away beneath their feet and filled the air with faint, semimusical collisions, it became apparent to Pennington that T’Prynn still had not fully recovered from her long coma and arduous psychic trauma. In all likelihood this journey was as physically difficult for her as it was for him.

Leading him off the rocky slope, T’Prynn veered wide around one of the few patches of smooth ground he had seen since leaving ShiKahr. She pointed at the path’s sandy stretch. “Avoid that. There is a sinkhole beneath it.”

“Noted,” Pennington said. He resolved to step where she stepped and not question why until they were out of the desert.

Hours passed as they followed the narrow, winding road through majestic towers of rock. Lightning forked between faroff peaks and was followed by a crash of thunder.

Eventually, Pennington lost track of time and was aware only of the gnawing emptiness in his stomach, the parched feeling in his mouth, and the dull aches in his feet and lower back. Despite a few brief respites during which they sipped water and devoured small pieces of dried fruit from their packs, the lean young journalist felt as if he were growing heavier with each step.

Plodding forward in a trancelike state, he was startled when T’Prynn stopped, turned, and declared, “It is time to make camp.” She doffed her pack and started to pull out fabric. “I need your help. There are additional pieces in your pack.”

He set down his burden, opened its top flap, and began pulling out stakes, rope, and anything that looked like a tent component. Looking around, he asked, “Where are we setting up?”

T’Prynn pointed to a spot in the shadow of a long slab of rock lying on a diagonal against some boulders, creating a large gap underneath. “In there. We will first have to check it for aylakimand k’karee.”

“I’m sorry—for what?”

“The aylakimis a hand-size scavenging arthropod with two stinging tails. The k’kareeis a venomous serpent.”

“Brilliant.”

Pennington focused on assembling the tent while T’Prynn checked their daytime shelter to ensure it was free of other occupants. When she returned, the sky showed the first traces of predawn gray. “Suns are coming up,” he said.

“We should make haste,” T’Prynn said. “Minerals in these rock formations will mask our life signs from scanners, but we must still evade visual scans.”

As he continued putting together their tent, which he noted had an outer skin made from the same camouflage-printed fabric that had concealed their packs, he remained fixated on the implications of what T’Prynn had just said. “Why are we evading sensors and search parties?” When she didn’t answer him, he filled in the blanks for himself. “Because you left Kren’than without permission. You’re AWOL from Starfleet, aren’t you? A fugitive.”

She met his accusatory look with an untroubled gaze. “Yes, I am.” Acting as if there were nothing else to be said on the matter, she finished assembling the tent’s frame and began stretching the fabric over it.

“Why would you flee custody?” Pennington asked. “Won’t that just make things worse when they catch you?”

Dragging the tent under the rocks, T’Prynn said, “That is a risk. However, it is a necessary step if I am to continue my career as a Starfleet officer.”

Pennington planted the first stake to secure the tent. “Sorry, ‘fraid you’ve lost me. Why is it necessary?”

As they placed the rest of the stakes and secured the tent with ropes, T’Prynn explained her reasons in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “Had I surrendered to the Starfleet Security personnel who were waiting to escort me from Kren’than, I would have faced an immediate court-martial. The outcome of such a proceeding is not in doubt: I would be convicted.

“Mental illness is the only plausible defense I can present to explain why I tampered with my own Starfleet medical record and abused my security clearance to do so. However, even if a court-martial accepts such an argument and spares me the indignity of incarceration, I will still be made to accept a dishonorable discharge from Starfleet.”

She finished securing the tent and moved it into place beneath its broad rock roof. Pivoting to face Pennington, she added, “Regardless of whether my conviction leads to prison or to a discharge, the premature termination of my Starfleet commission will render wasted my decades of acquired skills and experience. If, on the other hand, I can redeem myself through some meritorious action prior to my surrender, I might yet be able to salvage my career.”

“I see,” Pennington said. “You’re looking for leverage.”

She arched one elegant eyebrow. “Exactly.”

“Nice to see you still think it’s all about you,” he said. “At least you’re consistent.” He pulled open the tent flap and ducked inside. “Now, if you don’t bloody mind, I’m going to sleep. Wake me when the suns go down.”