Текст книги "Well of Souls"

Автор книги: Ilsa J. Bick

Соавторы: Ilsa J. Bick
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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Chapter 33

“What?”Garrett looked over at Stern, who was glowering over her tricorder. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything,” said Stern, her voice slightly tinny and attenuated over her environmental suit’s comm unit.

“I could have sworn.”

“Not me,” said Stern, and then she looked up. “Although with all the distortion from the magnetic field here, maybe your comchannel caught a glitch.”

“Maybe,” said Garrett, though she was doubtful. Her fingers found her comm unit controls, and she double-checked the frequency and found that it was right where she’d set it before they left the shuttlecraft, a short distance from two landskimmers they’d spied from the air, and started down this tunnel.

Odd. She knew she’d heard something, someone. Familiar voice, too. Someone on the same channel? Maybe the Enterprise?No, then Stern should have heard it. Garrett cocked her head, listened. She was aware of how dark the tunnel was around them, how deep underground they were, and how far they still had to go. She wasn’t claustrophobic, and the dark didn’t bother her, but the space around her felt strange. Crowded and close: the same way she felt in a turbolift when too many people crammed into too small a space. Don’t get spooked.Her eyes roved over the red-hued rock and noted where tools had bitten into the hard stone. Dead planet, empty biosphere—well, not quite empty, it was clear that someone had been there, and not too long ago, from the looks of the place. She and Stern had reconnoitered the biosphere just long enough to take note of a medium-range shuttle, and the general disarray. As if whoever had been there had left in a hurry.

After another few moments of listening, Garrett gave up and nodded toward Stern’s tricorder. “You still reading atmosphere in there?”

“Yup, andheat, plus some sort of organized energy signature. And that neuromagnetic field, it’s still there. Stronger than we read on the ship.”

“What about life signs?”

“Now that.”Stern grunted. “Reads like a convention down there.”

“How many?”

“A lot. Five humanoid and, oh, hell.”Stern jiggled her tricorder then smacked it with the side of her gloved hand. “Damn thing.”

“Very high tech.”

“Whatever works,” said Stern. She squinted. “Sorry, Rachel, they’re not all resolving. Like I said, I read at least five humanoids. Can’t tell you what they are either, what species. And there’s a whole bunch of other readings.”

“Define bunch. Are they life-forms?”

Stern made a piffling sound with her lips. “Life-forms. It’s a damn big galaxy, Rachel. I’m reading high-energy, almost like ionized plasma. But they’re contained, cohesive. I’m just not sure. I’ll tell you something, though. They remind me of something I read once. Mac talked about them in his seminars on xenobiology. You remember the Organians?”

“Who doesn’t? Organian Peace Treaty, 2267,” Garrett recited, “imposed by the Organians to prevent war between the Klingons and the Federation. Are you saying that these are Organians?”

“Not quite. The Organians were noncorporeal life forms, though: pure energy, pure thought. Mac was there, you know. Well, his captain was, anyway, Kirk, and his first officer, Spock. Anyway, they encountered a similar class of beings, two years later. Zetarians, they were called. Same deal: highly cohesive noncorporeal life-forms.”

“Are you telling me that’s what you’re reading here?”

“No, but it’s close. I’d have to get further in, I think, past all this damned interference, but there’s energy in there, and a lot of it. Neuromagnetic, for sure.”

Garrett was tempted to try to decipher the readings herself but doubted she’d have any more luck than Stern. “We saw two skimmers. Could whatever you’re reading have come from the biosphere?”

“I doubt it. That biosphere was made to handle ourkind, not,” Stern held her tricorder up, gave it a waggle, “this.”

“Okay,” said Garrett, though it wasn’t. “What about this panel? You sure about its being the source?”

“Absolutely, and I’ll tell you something else. This thing’s been opened three times now.”

Garrett was startled. “Three?But we only saw two alarms.”

“On the Enterprise.I know.” Stern gave her captain a significant look. “I don’t make these things up. You’d never catch it if you weren’t looking for it; the resonance band’s only slightly above that for Halak’s transponder, which was the reason we caught it the first time around. Only the secondtime, whoever opened it made a mistake. See here?” Stern pointed to a magnetic variance signature on her tricorder. “The first time, whoever did this got it right on the money. The second time, though, someone keyed in the wrong sequence to reverse polarity going in. Botched it.”

“And that set off the alarm.”

Stern nodded. “Then they seemed to have gotten it right. But the third time, well, here, look for yourself.”

Garrett thumbed through the entries. “Ionized debris, trace ferrous…Jo, this reads like a phaser blast. Recent, too.”

“Like within the last hour.”

“But then why isn’t the panel damaged? Or the surrounding rock?”

“Beats me. All I can tell you, whoever did this doesn’t have a hell of a lot of finesse, or patience. Not that hard to figure out, you know; this isn’t exactly twenty-fourth century state of the art technology here. But whoever was here just didn’t care, and that’s why the alarm has read continuous, only at a higher frequency. You could go in and out a hundred times now, and the alarm wouldn’t be any different.”

“Well, we ought to be able to do the same trick, minus the phaser.”

“But that’s weird. Phaser blast ought to have taken that thing right out of commission. From the looks of it, though, all it did was ramp up the alarm, only silently.”

“Your point?”

“Hell, I don’t know if I havea point. But I’ll tell you, this is one of the few times I wish we could just beam in, do our rescue, presuming whoever’s down there wants to be rescued, and then beam the heck back out.”

“We went over that. Too much…”

“Right, right,” Stern interrupted impatiently, “too much interference from the magnetic field. Don’t forget, I was there when you hatched this cockamamie plan. And I’ll tell you something right now. You can bet whoever’s out there listening won’t be far off. One blip, you can ignore. But not when it’s screaming. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

“Noted.” Handing Stern back her tricorder, Garrett ran her eyes over the seam of the panel. “What’s immediately beyond this?”

“Another door. Passage beyond that. Tunnels. Beyond them, looks like a maze of tunnels, like an anthill. But, for my money, this is a kind of antiquated airlock.”

“So no explosive decompression,” said Garrett, pulling out her phaser. “Well, if someone’s coming, I guess we’d better get our asses in gear, don’t you think?”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” said Stern. She keyed in the sequence to open the panel: red…red…red…double green. Watched as her tricorder read air evacuating from the lock. The door slid open. Stern slung her tricorder over her shoulder. “Fools go gladly.”

“Where angels fear to tread.” Garrett thumbed her phaser to setting two. “No one ever accused me of being an angel.”

“What do you mean, boy?” Chen-Mai felt so much blood choking his face, he thought he probably looked as purple as a bruised plum. He glared down at Jase, who knelt by Ven Kaldarren. “What’s wrong with your father? Speak sense!”

“But I’m tryingto tell you,” Jase said, desperation in his voice. He held his father’s head in his lap. Kaldarren grimaced, moaned. His face was stained with sweat and blood; his shoulder-length black hair clung in wet tendrils to his neck. Every few seconds, a tremor shuddered through his body. “They’re here,and they’ve gothim! Don’t you see them? They’re all over the place!”

“Who?All I see is you, that boy,” he jerked his head toward the prostrate figure of Pahl, “and your father.”

Kaldarren.Chen-Mai had to restrain himself from giving Kaldarren a swift kick in the kidneys. After Chen-Mai had blasted that panel blocking their way into the tunnel (and then that panel just slid open, who built such a stupid mechanism?),he and Mar had crept down the tunnel, half-expecting Kaldarren to ambush them at any second. What they were not prepared for was a treasure trove. Jevonite, gold, platinum, fabulous gems: The sheer amount of treasure spilling out of rock crystal chests and heaped in piles around the red stone floor was simply dazzling. There was little doubt that they were a hair’s breadth away from being rich beyond their wildest dreams. Both he and Mar had been so awestruck they hadn’t budged until they heard Jase’s frantic cries mingled with Kaldarren’s screams.

Well, the Betazoid didlook bad. He watched as Kaldarren writhed, the cords of Kaldarren’s muscles standing out along his neck. And his screams, Chen-Mai thought, they were loud enough to wake the dead.

But he didn’t understand any of this. Chen-Mai’s look took in the chamber. Pahl, slumped in his uncle’s lap. That silver mask. Chen-Mai plucked it up between two fingers and held it up in a soft silver light that washed over the chamber from somewhere high above. (Recessed light panels, Chen-Mai thought absently.) His eyes traveled over the simple contours of what was otherwise an unremarkable piece of what? Art?

“Don’t,” said Jase. He was staring at the mask, a wild expression on his face. “Don’t put it on!”

“And why would I do that?”Chen-Mai exhaled a harsh laugh, flipped the mask with a short, quick movement. (It doesn’t look that valuable, not worth bothering over, just one of Kaldarren’s useless artifacts.)The metal clattered against stone: a dull, clicking sound. “But he found something, right? Your father? How else do you explain what’s going on here?”

“Leave the boy alone.”

Chen-Mai swung his head toward Mar, who cradled Pahl in his arms. “What?”

“You heard me,” said Mar. “Pahl’s hurt, and any fool can see the Betazoid’s sick. Leave the boy alone, can’t you? We’ve got the money. Let’s get out, now.”

“But I want to know,” said Chen-Mai. He hooked a thumb at Kaldarren. “I want to know what he’s found out!”

“Well, I don’t.” Mar gave Kaldarren a long look before his golden eyes flipped up to Chen-Mai. “And you shouldn’t either, if you’ve got any brains. Look at him. You want to end up like that?”

“The boy hasn’t.”

“But Pahl has.”Mar cupped the unconscious boy’s cheek, smooth as cold wax, in one hand. “Look, there’s no portal. You see any portal? Whatever’s going on here, it’s for these telepaths, it’s stuff we don’t understand! I say we just leave, now. We take some of the jevonite back there, to show that we mean what we say, and we get out. We rendezvous with Talma, and then she can send someone back to collect the rest. We take our money and be thankful.”

“No,” said Jase, his face streaked and shiny with tears. “No, please, don’t leave us here, don’t!”

Kaldarren moaned. “No… no!”

“No what?” Chen-Mai squatted down on his haunches. “No, we don’t leave your kid? No, we don’t take the money? What? What did you find, Betazoid?”

Kaldarren’s eyelids fluttered, his eyes roving wildly from side to side. “No good,” Kaldarren managed at last. “No good.”

Those simple words seemed to cost him. He sagged back again, panting.

“No good?” Chen-Mai repeated. He reached out with one hand and gave Kaldarren a hard poke in the ribs. Kaldarren gave a short cry. “No good about what?”

“Stop!” Jase pleaded. “Stop, please!”

“Shut up.” And to Kaldarren: “No good about what? What?”

Kaldarren’s chest heaved. “No good to you,”Kaldarren managed, his breath hitching in the back of his throat. “No portal. But they’re here, they’re here.”

“They?” Chen-Mai frowned. “What, the same ghosts your kid…?”

“Get out.”Kaldarren moved his head the way a feverish man does in a delirium. “Get… out,get out before it’s too…too late…I can’t hold them, I can’t…”

“Please,” said Jase again, clutching his father’s hand. “Please, you’ve got to helphim! Take us with you, please!”

Chen-Mai stared down at Kaldarren’s flushed, sweat-soaked face for a long moment. Then his lip curled and, cursing, he pushed himself to his feet.

“I’ll help him,” said Chen-Mai, jerking his phaser free. “I’ll help him right now.”

Jase screamed. “No!”

“Wait,” cried Mar. “Chen-Mai, stop!”

“No, no!” Uncoiling, Jase launched himself at the stocky man. Chen-Mai staggered back then cut Jase a vicious blow across the face. Jase cried out, reeling back before collapsing against a wall. Blood gushed from his mouth.

“Chen-Mai!” Mar shouted, horrified. He started to his feet. “What are you doing?”

“Shut up!” Chen-Mai threw the words over his shoulder. He leveled his phaser at Jase. “They’re trouble, don’t you understand? They’re nothing but trouble!”

“But he’s a kid!”

“So what? What, you’re going to save him?”

“No,” said Mar, faltering. He turned away, ashamed. “It’s just…”

“Then shut up, Mar!” Chen-Mai flicked his phaser to kill. “If you’ve got nothing to add, then shut the hell up!”

“Please,” Jase sobbed, blood drooling from his lips, “please, don’t hurt my dad, please.”

“Look at it this way,” said Chen-Mai, leveling his phaser at Jase. “I do you first, you won’t have to watch.”

“Freeze!”The command cut through the air like a knife. “Right there! Don’t move, don’t so much as goddamn breathe!”

Mar froze. Chen-Mai flinched then whirled on his heel, weapon hand coming up for a shot.

There was a high-pitched whine, a flash of light, and the phaser blast caught his weapon hand. Shrieking, Chen-Mai spun around; his phaser clattered to the stone floor.

“I said,” Garrett readied her phaser for another blast, “don’t goddamn move.”

“Mom?” Jase tried pushing himself from the stone floor. “Mom?”

At the sound of her son’s voice, Garrett started, blinked as if she’d been struck. An instant later, the color drained from her face. Her eyes flicked over to the far wall then down to Kaldarren.

“Jase?” she whispered in disbelief. She took a step forward. “Ven?”

“Oh, Lord,” said Stern. She stood at Garret’s elbow, her own phaser out and ready. “What the hell?”

“Ven,”Garrett said again, starting forward. “Jase, what’s wrong with your father? Ven, I don’t understand, what…?”

It was the only opening Chen-Mai needed. In a blur of movement, he had swept up his phaser with his good hand and come up behind Jase, locking the boy’s neck in a stranglehold with his forearm.

“All right,” said Chen-Mai, jamming the muzzle of his phaser against Jase’s temple. “Everyone, drop your phasers. Nice and easy.”

Chapter 34

“A shuttlepod?”Servos protesting, Bat-Levi crossed to stand behind Glemoor at his station next to Castillo. “Are you sure?”

“Positive, Commander. Sensors indicate a Vulcan shuttlepod heading for the planet’s surface, and Commander Halak’s transponder signal indicates that he is on board.” Glemoor twisted his head around to look up at Bat-Levi. “Those shuttlepods are short-range vessels.”

“I know. I think it’s safe to assume they didn’t give him a ship for his own amusement. Who’s with him?”

“Life signs read Vulcan.”

“So Fake Burke is still aboard the T’Pol,and that means she’s nearby. Where?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t be precise.”

Bat-Levi gave the Naxeran a dry look. “Guess.”

Glemoor blinked. “Well, I guessthe T’Pol’s hidden behind the planet’s moon, or the planet itself.”

“Yeah, that’s what I would do.” Bat-Levi watched the course of the small green blip of the shuttlepod as it angled in toward the surface. “The fact that the shuttlepod’s headed down also means they don’t know we’re here.”

“Very likely. A Vulcan warpshuttle would have limited sensor capabilities. The question is what do we do now?”

Bat-Levi debated. She rejected as useless any speculation as to why the T’Polwas in the vicinity. They had no way of knowing, and this wasn’t her primary concern at the moment. Safeguarding the crew was. Bat-Levi wanted to try hailing Garrett but knew not only that their signal was unlikely to pierce through the interference, but this risked revealing their position. Not that she worried about T’Pol’s firepower: Enterprisewon that particular argument, hands down. The Cardassians, however, were a different matter.

Bat-Levi looked over at Castillo. “Helm, I want you to take us into the transition region of that brown star.”

Castillo looked startled. “That’s awfully close, Commander. Even with shields at max, we’ll cook.”

But Glemoor was shaking his head. “No, Ensign, it’s a good strategy, an excellentmove. By definition, the brown star is cooler than, say, your Sol.”

“And since the star itself is cooler, the temperature will be low enough for us not to be in any danger but just high enough to obscure our plasma trail,” said Bat-Levi. “We won’t cook, not if we don’t stay too long.”

“Permission to give a suggestion, Commander?” asked Castillo. At her nod, he continued, “We have no way of knowing how long we’ll have to stay. It’s much less risky if we adopt the same strategy as the T’Pol.Keep the planet and its moon in front of us as a natural barrier. The stellar winds ought to obscure our plasma trail, and you said yourself that the warpshuttle’s sensors can’t read very far.”

Bat-Levi and Glemoor exchanged glances. Then Bat-Levi put her good hand on Castillo’s shoulder.

“It’s not the T’PolI’m worried about,” she said, gently.

Jase, all that blood, what are you doing here, what’s happening? And Ven, Ven, what’s wrong with you?Garrett swallowed back her panic. “Jase?”

“I’m okay, Mom. But, Dad, you’ve got…” His voice ended in a choked gargle as Chen-Mai tightened his stranglehold around the boy’s neck.

“I said, be quiet!” Chen-Mai peered at Garrett over Jase’s right shoulder. “You,drop your weapon! Do it now! The other woman, too! In front of you where I can see them!”

“Fine.” Garrett held up her hands, palms out, and let her phaser clatter to the rock. Stern hesitated then followed suit. “No problem,” said Garrett. “Just take it easy.”

“I am veryeasy! Now, kick them out of the way…good. Now back up.”

The women did as they were told. Garrett’s gaze dropped to Kaldarren, who lay crumpled on his side. “Ven,” she called. She saw his eyelids flutter then open. “Ven!”

“Rachel.” Kaldarren’s face was a mask of pain. “Rachel, I knew you’d come if I called, I knew…”

He gave a sharp cry as Chen-Mai aimed a vicious kick at his back. “Quiet!” screamed Chen-Mai.

“Stop!” cried Garrett. She balled her fists in frustration and grief. “Let us helphim!”

“Not until I get some answers.” Chen-Mai rammed the point of his phaser into Jase’s temple. “Now, mind telling me how you got here?”

“Mom,” Jase began again, “Mom, I…”

“Enough!” Chen-Mai tightened his grip.

“Jase.” Garrett gritted her teeth. It was all she could do to keep from leaping across the room and throttling the man. “Jase, don’t say any more. Just be quiet.”

“Well,” said Chen-Mai, his black eyes swiveling to take in Jase, Garrett, and then Kaldarren. “A family reunion. What’re the odds on that, huh? When did you and Kaldarren hatch up this little scheme?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Garrett.

Chen-Mai snorted. “Let’s see, we’ve got the kid and his father, and now his mother conveniently shows up at just the right moment. Did Kaldarren set this up? I didn’t think he was that smart.”

Garrett wet her lips. “Listen to me. I don’t know what’s going on here, but…”

“Captain, I think I do,” Stern interrupted, her tone low and urgent. “Those energy signatures I read at the tunnel entrance. They’re here.”

“Captain?” Chen-Mai was instantly alert. “What do you mean, Captain?”

Ignoring him, Garrett glanced back over her shoulder. “That neuromagnetic plasma you read?”

“What do you mean, Captain?”Chen-Mai shouted. “What do you mean? Whoare you?”

Garrett turned, teeth bared. “I am Captain Rachel Garrett of the Federation Starship Enterprise. Thisis my ship’s doctor. Thatis my son, and that’shis father. Okay?”

“Not okay.” Chen-Mai’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“We answered a distress call.”

“Distress call…we didn’t send out any distress call.”

“That’s because you tripped an alarm, you moron.” Stern’s voice dripped with contempt. “At the tunnel entrance. Let me guess, you’re the one with the ham-handed approach to opening doors, right? Phaser, right? Idiot, you tripped an alarm.”

Chen-Mai gaped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. “The mechanism was jammed, it was…”

Stern made a horsey sound. “Jammed, my eye. You fired your damn phaser and set off a silent alarm beacon. We picked it up aboard our ship. And you can bet we’re not the only ones.”

Garrett said, “We had to investigate; we had no way of distinguishing an alarm from a distress call. We found the biosphere then picked up your life signs and followed them until we came here. I had no idea that either my son or my…husband was here.” She looked past Chen-Mai at Jase. “Jase, what happened here, son?”

Jase’s eyes slid sideways as if to gauge whether or not he was about to be choked again. “I,” he began, “Pahl and I, we found the tunnel a couple of days ago. Then Pahl, he put on that mask, and then one of those things, it took him over.”

“The mask?” Chen-Mai searched the floor until his eyes caught a glint of silver. “You mean, that? That’s important?”

“You bet your sweet ass, it is,” said Stern. “I think I get it, Captain. It’s all here. There are hundreds of signatures in this room. Here and not here, almost as if they’re,” she studied her tricorder readings then shook her head in bewilderment, “as if they’re cloaked in some way. But the energy is neural. Captain, they’re minds. Or spirits, ghosts. And a lot of them…” she inclined her head toward Kaldarren, but didn’t finish the sentence.

“They’re inside?” Garrett paled. She closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself. “Oh, dear God. Can you help him?”

“I don’t know,” said Stern, starting forward. “I need to do…”

“Don’t move, don’t move!” Chen-Mai shouted. “You, the doctor, put that down, put it down!”

“Oh, give it a rest,” Stern growled. She dropped to her knees by Kaldarren and ran her medical tricorder over the length of his body. “I’m a doctor and this man’s hurt. So either shoot me or shut up.” When Chen-Mai didn’t respond, Stern continued, “Wising up, right? Look, some of those things are insidehim. For all I know, some more are inside that boy over there.”

“What?” Mar started, stared down at his nephew’s still, waxen features. “InPahl?”

“No,” said Jase, “no, it’s not. It’s gone. When Dad talked to It, It left Pahl and went into Dad.”

It, thought Garrett, like a name. “Talked to It. Telepathically, Jase?”

Jase nodded, and she saw his eyes pool. “I couldn’t hear it. I felt it, though. I knew they were here, that they arehere.”

“Makes sense,” Stern murmured.

“I knew it,” said Chen-Mai. His lips trembled with suppressed excitement. “I knew it, I knew it! He found a portal.”

“No,” said Jase, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “There’s no door, or anything like that. Pahl used the mask, but Dad didn’t.”

Stern grunted. “Mind transference, Captain, same principle as the Vulcan mind-meld, or any true telepathic contact. But that mask, I’ll bet my bottom dollar that it’s a device that focuses or collimates neural energy. Like a lens focuses diffuse light to a single point: The lens doesn’t makethe light. It’s simply a conduit for allowing certain properties of light to be exaggerated, or used.”

“What do you mean?” Chen-Mai raged. “Speak sense! Can that be used, or not?”

“Probably not by you.” Stern’s look spoke volumes. “Or me, for that matter, but not because I’m the least bit like you, thank God. That thing just makes it easier for an energy exchange to take place. True telepaths wouldn’t require it.”

“But empaths would?” asked Garrett.

Stern hesitated, gave Jase a quick glance. “Sure,” she said, then with added emphasis, “or people with fledgling telepathic abilities.”

“That can’t be,” said Mar. “Pahl is not a telepath.”

“But he’s Naxeran, and from his complexion, one of his parents was a Weyrie, right?” When Mar nodded, Stern looked over at Garrett. “The Weyries are the only class of Naxerans who dream, Captain. They also have a fairly high prevalence of psychiatric problems. Hallucination, delusions.”

“Telepathic equivalents?”

“Maybe for the Naxerans.”

“Glemoor’s never mentioned it.”

“The Naxerans may not know, Captain. As I recall, the Weyries don’t tend to live very long. They’re also pretty reclusive; I don’t think other Naxerans have much to do with them.”

“The Weyries,” said Mar, his frills trembling, “very strange, very odd…”

“Weyries,” Chen-Mai interrupted. “Empaths, telepaths! Enough of this talk. What matters now is that you arehere.”

“Don’t you get it?” Stern asked. “We wouldn’t behere if you hadn’t been so helpful with your phaser on that airlock. And you can bet your bottom dollar that if we caught that signal, so will the Cardassians. They’re probably on their way now.”

Garrett looked over at Mar. Of the two men, she thought that the Naxeran would be the most reasonable. “Look, I don’t know why you’re here. Frankly, I don’t care. Right now, I care about getting out of here before the Cardassians show up. Now the best thing for everyone is for you to come with us. We’ve got a shuttle. We can take care of your boy on the ship.”

Mar hesitated, glanced over at Chen-Mai, then nodded.

“No!” Chen-Mai shouted. “No, are you crazy?You want to leave all this behind?”

“But if they’re right and the Cardassians are coming, what good will it do us if we’re dead?” asked Mar.

“They’re just making it up,” said Chen-Mai. “The boy’s father and his mother, they’re both in on this.”

“Oh, that’s intelligence for you,” said Stern.

“Jo!” Garrett snapped. And to Chen-Mai: “If we don’t leave now, we’ll be stranded here. Our ship has orders to leave the system if they so much as sniff a Cardassian ship. We have to go now!”

But Chen-Mai was shaking his head and, to Garrett’s dismay, he began backing up, using Jase as a shield. “Oh, no. Your ship might leave, and you might be right, but I’ll be taking my own ship, thanks. Now I want what’s my due. I didn’t take all these risks to be left with nothing. All that money in that other room there, I’m not leaving it behind. And just to make sure your ship doesn’t fire on me on my way out of the system, the boy’s coming with me.”

“Mom,” said Jase, his eyes wide with fright. “Mom!”

“Wait a minute.” Mar started to his feet. “What about me? What about Pahl? You’re not leaving us behind!”

“No onehas to be left behind!” Garrett said sharply. “Look, I give you my word, we’ll let you go. You won’t be charged. Come with us; you don’t have to do this!”

Chen-Mai’s face was hard. “I don’t believe you. I’m leaving and I’m taking the boy. You, Mar, if you’re coming, leave the boy and come now!”

“No.” Mar spread out his hands in a helpless gesture. “I can’t do that. I can’t leave Pahl. Please, Chen-Mai, at least let the doctor…”

“There’s no time!”

Mar’s jaw firmed. “I won’t leave.”

“Fine,” said Chen-Mai. His phaser flicked away from Jase’s temple. “Then stay.”

“No!” cried Garrett, too late.

There was a brilliant flash as the phaser beam lanced across the chamber. Mar screamed as the beam struck the side of his head, and collapsed in a heap to the stone. Before Garrett could move, Chen-Mai had his phaser trained on Jase’s head once more.

Stern rushed to Mar’s side, ran her medical tricorder over his body. Shook her head.

Choking back her fury, Garrett turned on Chen-Mai. “There was no reason for that, none!”

Of all things, Chen-Mai grinned, showing the gap between his teeth, the pink nub of his tongue working. “One thing you learn in my business: People do what they’re told. Otherwise, things go wrong. I don’t like it when things go wrong.”

“You didn’t have to kill him. There’s no reason that anyone else has to die here.”

But Chen-Mai was backing out, pulling Jase with him. “You come after me, I’ll kill him, you understand?”

“Mom!” Jase began to struggle. “Mom, don’t let him!”

“Shut up!” Chen-Mai cuffed the boy across the temple with the butt of his phaser.

Jase gasped, staggered. Then, roaring with anger, Jase brought the heel of his foot down, hard, on the man’s instep.

“Jase!” Garrett shouted.

Chen-Mai choked out a scream. Jase tore away and dove for the floor just as Chen-Mai let loose a blast from his phaser. But his aim was off, and the beam sizzled wide, skirting the boy’s head. The beam was so close that Garrett heard the sputter-crack of the phaser as the beam gouged a hole in the red stone floor. The floor twitched with the force of the blast, and Jase tripped, tried scrambling to his feet, but then Garrett was diving for him, knocking him left as the phaser licked the stone to her right. Garrett banged into the hard rock floor; the impact knocked her breath away and left her gasping. There was a high whine and then the red rock erupted in a spray of pulverized and superheated stone, showering her with debris that pattered down upon her head and bit at her cheeks.

“Go!” Garrett choked, gulping down air. Reaching down, she detached her helmet from her waist and rolled into a crouch. “Move, Jase, move!”

Jase darted left, and as Chen-Mai brought his phaser around for another shot, Garrett sprang, flying across the room, slinging her fist around in a roundhouse swing. She caught Chen-Mai on the point of his chin with an audible crack. The man went down in a heap, his phaser whirling from his hand. Garrett knew her own weapon was too far away and she lunged for Chen-Mai’s. At the last second, he reached up and grabbed her ankle, sent her crashing to the floor.

“Jase!” she yelled to her son who was crouched in a far corner. “Get the phaser, get the phaser!”

Jase started for the weapon, but, somehow, Chen-Mai staggered to his feet and scooped up the phaser, juggling the weapon from his left to his right hand.

“You’re too much trouble,” he said, backing away, chest heaving, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Turning his head to one side, he spat out a gob of rust-colored saliva. His teeth were orange with blood. He took aim at Garrett. “Too much damn trouble.”

Suddenly, there was a shout from the arched doorway just behind, the one that led to the main burial chamber. Garrett twisted her head around in time to see Sivek stumbling through the opening, off-balance, his arms out and windmilling for a support that wasn’t there.