Текст книги "Well of Souls"

Автор книги: Ilsa J. Bick

Соавторы: Ilsa J. Bick
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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

He shouldn’t have left the biosphere; he should have listened to his dad. Dad, help us, please help us!

“Pahl,” he moaned. His fingers scrabbled uselessly over cool red stone and bits of decayed wood. “Pahl.”

But Pahl was quiet now. Shuddering, Jase lay with his cheek pressed against rock, felt the bite of grit against his skin. He saw that Pahl was shaking; his friend’s hands were twisted, claw-like. No.Jase felt the weight of the air heavy along his body, pressing him into the stone until he couldn’t breathe. No, no, nonononono…

And now, in the gathering darkness, he heard them: their voices shrill and greedy: Ours, our time, our time, ours,ours!

“Pahl,” he said, his voice a dry croak. “Pahl, help me!”

Slowly, Pahl turned, and then Jase saw Pahl’s eyes shining and luminous, glowing with all the hard, cold beauty of two blue stars. Fear gripped Jase by the throat. His voice came out in a strangled squeak of a whisper. “Pahl?”

“No.” Pahl’s voice was stony, the tone flat. Alien. “I’m not Pahl. Not now.”

Horror washed through Jase and left him weak. “Please,” he said, “please.” And in his mind: Dad, Dad, help us!

“Are you afraid?” Pahl– It—took a step then two toward Jase. The air coiled around Pahl– It.The air gathered, bunched. “Areyou?”

“Yes,” Jase wailed. Dad, Dad!“Yes, yes, yesyesyes!”

“Yes,” It said, an echo, that serpent’s hiss. “Yesssyesssyesss.” A pause. “You should be.”

And, a second later, Jase Garrett began to scream.

Chapter 31

“An alarm?”Chen-Mai asked. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” said Leahru-Mar, disliking the way the other man crowded him. “I missed it on standard scans. You’d just never think to look.”

“Why did you?”

“There was a faint distortion of the magnetic field localized to an area around that old lake, and after I saw the power emanations, I tried to figure out what thatmeant. I read that there’s a power source that’s been switched on, and an alarm that’s gone off. The alarm’s weak, on a very narrow band. In fact, it’s much closer to old infrared or laser-propagation waves than subspace channels.”

“Infrared?”Chen-Mai scowled. “That’s not old, that’s ancient.”

“Well, whatever it is, someone’s tripped an alarm. Either that, or someone’s broadcasting a signal, probably automated.”

“A signal. To whom?”

Mar’s frills canted at a right angle to his nose before settling back down. “I’m not a communications expert; I just pilot ships. If that isa signal, I’m not sure it will pierce the magnetic interference blanketing the planet. Probably not.”

“But if it does get through, then the Cardassians will know we’re here,” Chen-Mai fumed. “The Cardassians will be all overthis planet!”

Mar waited him out. Privately, he thought the alarm wasn’t a huge concern. Likely the Cardassian patrols wouldn’t pick up a thing until they swung back through the system. If the Cardassians stuck to their schedule, they were a little under a day away. By then, they—he, Pahl, and Chen-Mai (the Betazoid and his boy were on their own)—planned to be very gone.

“Well, how long has the power signature been there?” asked Chen-Mai.

“An hour, maybe a little longer. The sensor grid showed red about two hours ago, but when I tried to reconfirm, the signal vanished. I didn’t think any more about it. Besides, it read a little like a magma disturbance, about two kilometers down.”

“Except this planet’s dead, Mar. It hasn’t been geologically active for centuries.”

“There’s always some residua,” said Mar, defensively. “Even with dead moons, there are subterranean shifts.”

The cast of Chen-Mai’s skin was always sallow, but now the blood rushed to his face, mottling his skin with ugly splotches, like bruises on a yellow pear. “But that doesn’t explain how you could miss a signal that indicates periodicity, and a power source!”

Indignant, frills twitching, Mar drew himself up. He might be a Leahru, clan of the Weaker Brother, but he wasn’t an Efram, or anyone’s Naxeran punching bag. “Youtry sitting here, hour after hour and day after day, sifting through sensor garbage!I don’t know how I missed it. You can bully me all you want, but the simple fact remains that I found it now, and we’ve got to decide what to do!”

“What to do?” Chen-Mai’s jaws clamped down so hard, Mar heard the click of his teeth. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” He pushed his way forward again and jabbed his finger square upon a pulsating green blip on the sensor display. “Thatis a power signature. It means that Kaldarren’s found the portal!”

“Well,” said Mar, slightly mollified now that Chen-Mai was concentrating his wrath on the Betazoid, “that would explain the alarm, certainly. Except for something reportedly so invaluable, to arm it with an alarm that’s essentially a laser-propagation wave doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s old. It’s ancient. We’re talking thousands of years. Maybe this passed as state of the art back then. Or maybe the Cardassians didn’t have anything better, or don’t know about it,” said Chen-Mai. “Idon’t know. But I do know this. There’s a source powering something, and now there’s a signal that might be strong enough to pierce the magnetic blanket that’s all over the wretched planet, and to think that it’s been there, right there, under our noses the whole time!”

“Well,” said Mar, trying to temporize, “not exactly under our noses…”

“Shut up, Mar. You puling Naxerans are all alike. Just shut up and let me think.”

Mar lapsed into silence. He didn’t distrust Ven Kaldarren the way Chen-Mai did. The xenoarchaeologist was just naïve. Well, actually, he was stupid.Kaldarren trusted Chen-Mai to keep his part of the bargain: share and share alike. Stupid. Well, the Betazoid had no one to blame but himself. Hecertainly wasn’t going to charge to Kaldarren’s rescue. Mar wasn’t the kind of man who would voluntarily jump into the fray. But, puling Naxeran, eh? True, he wasLeahru; G’Doks had all the power. As Leahru, Mar knew all about the fine art of treading lightly around people in power. The equation was simple. Chen-Mai had the power; Mar did not. All right, so maybe that made him puling in Chen-Mai’s calculus.

And Kaldarren? If he’d been Naxeran, Kaldarren would’ve been Efram: a member of the servant class. If Kaldarren were stupid enough to trust Chen-Mai, he’d have probably wound up getting himself killed sooner or later—if not by Chen-Mai then by someone equally vile. Briefly, Mar debated about whether or not he might be able to do something for Kaldarren’s son, and then decided he couldn’t. Actually, shouldn’t:It wasn’t as if the boy could be counted on to keep his mouth shut, and what would they do with him afterward anyway?

Which left him with another problem. Mar’s sulfurous eyes slid sideways. Chen-Mai was pacing and muttering. If Chen-Mai had always intended to eliminate Kaldarren, he’d most certainly have decided that sharing whatever booty there was with himwasn’t very desirable either. Chen-Mai was a good enough pilot; he’d be able to get the shuttle off this rock. Maneuvering around Cardassians was another matter, and maybe Chen-Mai wouldn’t want to take that much of a risk. On the other hand, he might—if the rewards were big enough. Now that an alarm had sounded, Mar thought the rewards would be very big indeed. Otherwise, why bother with an alarm? So his problem: Who would get to whom first?

Chen-Mai broke into Mar’s thoughts. “All right. Here’s what we do. We’re going to assume the Cardassians will pick up that signal sooner rather than later. Now, Kaldarren took one skimmer, right? Well, we’ll take the other. If Kaldarren’s found the portal—and I’ll just bet he has—we assume he’s found a tomb, too. There’ll be so much treasure we’ll need two skimmers. And don’t forget a tricorder. We want to make sure to download the specs on the portal, assuming Kaldarren hasn’t already done us the favor. Phasers, too.”

“Phasers are a given. And if Kaldarren objects?”

“Two skimmers, two pilots. Two phasers. Do the math, Mar.”

“All right, then. Let’s talk math.” Mar tapped the sensor display. “There’re threelife signs down there. What about the boys? No.” He put a finger to his lips and felt the fine tips of his frills brush his skin. “I misspoke. There’s no question about Pahl. So about the other boy?”

Chen-Mai shrugged. “What about him?”

Kaldarren’s fingers were shaking so badly he had trouble keying in the correct sequence to reverse polarity on his tricorder. After that first wrenching mind-scream, Kaldarren had been so disoriented he hadn’t known which way to go. Finally, he remembered his tricorder and then he’d seen them: two life-forms beneath the surface. The boys.Then he’d seen the power signature, and Kaldarren knew. The boys had found the portal—or something.

But the mind-scream—Kaldarren had stumbled over rock until he found the tunnel—how had Jase managed that? The echoes were still there, and there was something else, too, something that was neither Jase, nor Pahl. Something alien.

Oh, Jase.Kaldarren’s pulse throbbed in his temples. His mind was still bruised from the assault, and he willed a partial shield, knowing he’d be of little help to his son if he were incapacitated. Jase, Jase, Jase, where are you?

Getting down the tunnel was difficult; Kaldarren didn’t have a light, and so he let his tricorder, the boys’ flare-markers, and his mind lead the way. Now, standing in front of the metal panel, Kaldarren felt rivers of sweat running down his back. His breath fogged against his faceplate and he forced himself to slow down, try to stay calm, and he found himself wishing, fervently and for the first time in years, that Rachel were there.

She’d know what to do.Kaldarren’s fingers slipped over the tricorder controls; the indicators went red, and his tricorder blatted an error message. Oh, how stupid! He wanted to scream, smash the instrument against the rocks. Damn her, damn her, I’ve seen her about as frightened as a person can be and still live, and she’d know how to handle this, what to do, Rachel, Rachel…

Stop.Kaldarren clamped his shaking lips together. He couldn’t panic. If he did, he couldn’t help his son. Steeling himself, Kaldarren tried again.

The tricorder went red…red…red…double green. The panel slid to one side. Another room. Small. Dark.

Go.Kaldarren hesitated, all his senses screaming in protest. If there was nothing on the other side, if the panel didn’t open, he’d be trapped in there and Jase, he wouldn’t be able to get to Jase. But, no: His eyes scoured the readings on his tricorder, and he adjusted its range and gain. Beyond that second panel, there was air, warmth. Jase.

Go.Kaldarren squared his shoulders. Go!

Kaldarren stepped into the darkness.

“I see it,” said Talma. They had moved to within sensor range of the planet, and now she found that she wanted to break something. But Halak was standing right beside her, so she couldn’t. Instead, she drew a deep breath. Appearances.

“Sivek?” She almost said Vaavek.“Are you absolutely sure?”

The Vulcan threw her a glance that, on a human, might have been describing as withering. “There is no mistake. Granted, the magnetic interference coupled with ionized plasma contrails makes sensor readings difficult. But difficult is not a synonym for impossible, and I had rerouted auxiliary power to my sensors to compensate. Therefore, that,”he nodded at one grid upon his sensor display, “is a signature consistent with a landskimmer. And that,” the Vulcan enhanced another area of his scans, “or should I say thoseare life-forms, humanoid, three. Two are in close proximity, perhaps in a room. The third is heading in their general direction.”

“And that?” Halak reached past the Vulcan to point out a pulsating resonance signature deep in the planet’s surface. “That’s much further down. It’s not geological?”

The Vulcan pursed his lips. “I had considered that as a possibility and discarded it. The signature has periodicity; it appears to be artificial and is likely an energy source. There is also a secondary energy signature that I have never seen before.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“I believe I just said, I’ve never seen it before. Therefore, I can only describe, not tell you what it is. It is neuromagnetic.”

Halak frowned. “Brain waves? Sivek, you’ve got to be wrong. How…?”

“Commander, I just said…”

“All right, boys,” Talma intervened. “Zip ’em away for now. And no,” she said before the Vulcan could ask, “I’m not explaining that.”

“All right.” Halak folded his arms over his chest. “We’ve got a power source and some archaic laser-propagation wave, and now we’ve got a location, the place this portal of yours most likely is. As I recall, the plan was notto have a run-in with whomever Qadir’s got down there, and you can bet that propagation wave’s going to be picked up by someone soon, and that someone’s likely to be a Cardassian, and probably more than one.”

“Not necessarily. You heard Sivek. It’s so weak we’re lucky to have seen it, and we’re still fairly far out, not even in orbit yet. Right?” Talma addressed this to the Vulcan. “It looked like a magnetic burst, right?”

“Correct. Most ships would pass it off as being inconsequential.” Vaavek paused. “Unless it happens again.”

“See?” said Talma to Halak. “Nothing to worry about on that score. That thing’s so weak, it would take a miracle for anyone to see it.”

“What if it’s a distress call?”

Talma shifted impatiently. “If it is, then that’s all the more reason to get down there. Now I’m certain those energy fluctuations come from that portal. We can’t beam down because of all that radiation and stellar wind. Better you and Sivek go down in a pod.”

“So Sivek can keep an eye on me,” said Halak, his tone sour. Talma suppressed a tight smile. She’d produced the orders with assurances about rescuing Arava he’d requested, so there was no question now that he’d follow through. “As if I’ll get very far in a pod. What’s it make, Sivek? Warp one?”

“One-point-five. Under optimal conditions.”

“Uh-huh.” Halak turned to Talma/Burke. “And what about you?”

“I will stay onboard the T’Poland nudge her into lunar stationary orbit on the far side of the planet’s larger moon, out of sight. From there I can monitor the space immediately around the planet. Don’t worry,” she said, reading Halak’s expression. “I’ll let you know the instant any Cardassian scouts arrive. Remember, Starfleet has no more interest in the Cardassians finding us than you do.”

“With that signal, they’ll be in this sector…”

“They won’t,but the longer we stand around arguing, the greater the likelihood they will. Now you know what to do?”

Halak sighed. “Locate and secure the portal. Take detailed sensor readings on the construction and operation. Try not to get myself killed. Anything else?”

“No.” Talma’s eyes slid to Vaavek. “You?”

“A moment alone, if you please.”

“Right,” said Halak, backing out of the T’Pol’s bridge toward the gangway. “I’ll just stand over here while you two whisper.”

“No,” said Talma. “Stay right where you are. Anything you have to say, Sivek,you can say in front of the commander.”

The Vulcan didn’t look convinced. “Why are youremaining aboard? It’s a Vulcan ship. Youare Starfleet Intelligence. This is not the V’Shar’s mission.”

“But you’re a Vulcan,” said Talma easily. “And a Vulcan male at that. Far better equipped to deal with Commander Halak than I am.” She looked over at Halak. “Isn’t that right?”

Halak put his hands on his hips. “Maybe. We could certainly go one-on-one right now, see what happens.”

“You would not enjoy it, Commander,” said Vaavek. “If, however, you are someone who thrives on experiential learning, I am willing to accommodate you.”

“Down, boys.” She returned her gaze to Vaavek. “That’s the plan. Okay?”

“Not entirely,” said Vaavek.

“Good, I’m glad that’s settled. Now, we’re wasting time. You and Halak get down there. And Sivek, don’t forget a phaser.”

“Wait a minute,” Halak protested. “If he gets one, I want one.”

Talma slid into the pilot’s chair and swiveled around until her back was to the commander. “No.”

“I get it. I get to take care of whomever’s down there, but then Sivek gets to take care of me.”

Talma plotted her course for the planet’s moon. “Only if you misbehave, Commander.”

“You know that won’t happen.”

“Well,” now Talma pulled her head around and gave Halak a sweet smile, “let’s hope not, for your sake—and for Arava’s.”

“Mysake?” Halak’s face darkened with an angry rush of blood. “The only reason I’m doing this is for Arava. I don’t have anything left to lose except her.”

“Then I’m quite fortunate,” said Talma, turning aside once more. “Because they say that the most dangerous man is the one who’s got nothing left to lose. Good luck, Commander.”

“I believe in making my own luck, thanks.”

“Then I suggest you make a lot of it, Commander.” Because you can bet—Talma listened to Halak’s angry footsteps fade away as he clambered down to the waiting pod– that if you and Vaavek fail, I’ll be making mine.

“Twice?”Garrett leaned over Bulast’s shoulder and stared at his communications display. “Are you sure?”

“There’s no mistake, Captain,” said Bulast. “See, these time indices, here and here? Two distinct signals: a blip on and then off, and now one that’s continuous.”

“Oh, good,” said Stern, who’d been hovering around Garrett’s command chair for the last hour. “Now we’ve got alarms. We lose Halak’s transponder signal in all that radioactive slush out there, but we get alarms.”

Garrett ignored her. “So you’re saying it’s like a door.”

Bulast nodded. “Like a door that opened and closed. Twice. Only the second time, someone left it open.”

“Careless,” said Stern.

“Or maybe,” said Bat-Levi, who’d been studying the same signal at her station, “maybe it’s not that the door’s been left open,but that the alarm hasn’t properly been turned on, or off, to begin with. Captain, I remember my parents had an alarm for their house. Even if your retinal scan matched, the thing let off a little bleep. It was a redundant system. Retinal scan outside, voice print inside. But here was the real catch. If someone, an intruder, were to somehow fake the retinal scan but made a mistake along the way—bungled the match before getting it right, let’s say—the system let him in. But then it sent out a silent alarm, and the alarm stayed on.”

“So as not to alert the intruder.” Garrett looked over at Bulast. “Could that be it? Is it a distress call?”

“Captain, there’s no way of knowing. The first signal reads just like the commander said, as if someone opened the door, maybe tripped an alarm doing it but then disarmedit. Closed the door correctly, maybe, I don’t know. The second reads as if they didn’t bother closing it, or maybe didn’t know they had to. But here’s the other thing that’s peculiar. That signal reads like a general distress only the band is narrow, closer to infrared. So the technology is ancient. Mid-twenty-first century stuff.”

“Damn.” Sighing, Garrett resumed her pacing. She’d been pacing for two hours, too keyed up to sit in her command chair. Probably wearing a groove in the deck.“Damn, why did this have to happen now?”

“Captain,” said Glemoor, “in terms of probabilistic…”

“I think that was an expression, Glemoor,” said Stern. To Garrett: “What do you want to do?”

“What I wantand what I haveto do might be mutually exclusive. What about Halak? Any luck getting his signal back?”

“No,” said Bulast. “We lost him as soon as the T’Poldropped out of warp.”

“But we’ve still got the T’Pol.”

“Not really,” said Glemoor. “We’ve picked up remnants of a warp signature consistent with a Vulcan warpshuttle in this sector. But those remnants are decaying fast in the strong magnetic field of that binary star system out there. Old or new, I have no way of knowing. They could have left this sector and we wouldn’t be able to tell.”

“But they were heading in this general direction,” Stern pointed out. “And there’s nothing leading awayfrom here. So they’re still around.”

“Unless the ship backtracked and exited the system at a point too distant for us to see, perhaps subtending its signal behind the neutron star. If the T’Polelected to swing close to the neutron star, any warp signature would have been distorted, almost like a cloaking device.”

“Couldthe alarm be coming from Halak?” asked Stern.

Bulast spoke up. “Negative on that, not unless he’s jury-rigged something. If he has, you’d assume he’d try to target us, not just blare a general distress.”

“Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” said Stern.

“And risk alerting the Cardassians?” said Garrett. She ran a hand over her forehead. “I don’t think so. And speaking of Cardassians, any sign of them?”

“Not yet,” said Bat-Levi. She didn’t say that might change in the very near future. She didn’t have to.

“What about origination point?” Garrett looked over at Glemoor who was seated at his console to Castillo’s left. “Where’s that alarm coming from?”

“Origination point of the propagation wave appears to be the fourth planet, Captain. I read power emanations and a periodicity that’s different from the general background wash of gamma rays from that neutron star.”

“What type of power is it?”

“That is what is so unusual, Captain. I wasn’t certain of my findings initially, but Commander Bat-Levi has verified. There are actually two signatures: one is something very close to fusion power. But the other is neither nuclear nor thermal. It is not electromagnetic, but it appears to be a highly charged neuromagnetic plasma interface.”

“Neuromagnetic?” Garrett glanced over at Stern, who only shook her head. “You’re saying brain waves?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s more like a plasma cloud of ionized particles, only in this instance the driving force is neuromagnetic, and not radioactive. Both emanate from deep beneath the planet’s surface. And there’s something else.”

“What? Another power source?”

“Not exactly.” The Naxeran screwed up his face in a way that reminded Garrett of an inquisitive cat. “There’s a biosphere, Captain. That is, I believe there is. We’re still at the extreme limits of sensors.”

“A biosphere?” Garrett was at Glemoor’s station in two strides. “Are there life signs? Did theysend the signal?”

“Negative. The alarm appears to have originated underground.”

“Near that neuromagnetic power source?” And when Glemoor nodded, Garrett continued, “What about ships?”

“At this distance, I can not say for certain if there are ships. Certainly, there are none orbiting the planet. The planet does possess two moons, however.”

“So a ship could hiding behind one.”

“That is a possibility. With all the radiation in the area, it is also just as possible that there is a ship we cannot see.”

Bat-Levi said, “Captain, we have to assume that the alarm’s genuine until we know otherwise. The T’Polcould be anywhere, and we have no way of knowing exactly where, or whether she’s moved off. But distress calls take precedence.”

“Rachel,” said Stern, “you can’t…”

“Doctor,” said Garrett, in a peremptory tone that brooked no debate. “Much as I might like it to be otherwise, Bat-Levi’s right. If that’s a distress call, we have to answer.”

Stern was undeterred. “And if it isn’t? What if it’s some old hunk of junk that’s malfunctioned, or something? You going to gamble Halak’s life on a lousy machine?”

“We don’t know that it isjunk, and we don’t have the luxury of assuming anything.” Garrett blew out a long sigh. “All right, everyone, listen up. This is what we’re going to do.”