Текст книги "Catalyst of Sorrows "

Автор книги: Margaret Bonanno

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“Two shadows!” Jarquin whispered almost in awe. “And the butterflies—?”

“Exquisite,” Zetha told him, though she’d seen precious few of them in the dark streets of the capital. “Just as you imagine them. Sometimes if you’re very still, they’ll even light on your shoulders and in your hair, especially if you wash with flower soaps.”

Now that,she thought, is going too far. It was only one butterfly, and it landed on the wildflower Tahir found struggling through a crack in a cobblestone and braided into your hair. But how would this—bureaucrat—know that?Emboldened, she went further.

“There are certain times of the year, when they migrate, there are so many of them overhead that they block out the sun…” Zetha noticed that Tuvok was watching her, something like admiration in his eyes. “Citizen Jarquin, can you imagine looking up at what you think is a cloud and seeing instead a rainbow of colors, flashing in the sunlight, all fluttering at once, moving as one toward a common goal?”

Jarquin did not answer. His thoughts were very far away. Tuvok cleared his throat.

“That is sufficient, Niece,” he said. “Citizen Jarquin and I need to discuss our itinerary now.”

That brought Jarquin out of his rapture. “I’m afraid it won’t be entirely possible for you to visit every sector you’ve requested.”

“Why not?” Tuvok demanded with what he hoped was a credible Romulan imperiousness.

“I can issue you limited travel permits for certain areas, but others…” He seemed to weigh something before he spoke next. “Citizen Leval, Citizen Vesak, I trust these words will never leave this room…but there have been outbreaks of we don’t know what, except that it was deadly….”

Zetha, her mouth shut at last, dared a glance at Selar, who had suddenly become even more alert than usual.

“We’ve had to quarantine two of the cities you requested, and certain sectors of three more. No one gets in or out until we’re certain this thing is finished.”

Jarquin had pulled up a map on his desk screen. Selar leaned forward imperceptibly, committing it to memory. While Jarquin was occupied with pushing buttons, she and Tuvok exchanged glances. Selar’s was visibly excited; Tuvok’s urged caution.

“Damnable, inexplicable, something like that occurring in the winter,” Jarquin was muttering. “Every citizen receives immunizations at the start of every winter against anything contagious. Well, you can imagine, shut up indoors most of the time, we can’t be too careful. But usually no one gets sick in the cold weather. Sorry, I know this will cut into your profits, but I can’t let you…”

“We quite understand,” Tuvok said before Selar could object. “But we can have permits for the other sectors we requested?”

“Oh, of course, of course,” Jarquin blustered, rummaging on his desk for the proper forms. “Always happy to be of service to loyal Romulans…”

Sisko’s chrono beeped, reminding him that he needed to check on the landing party’s whereabouts every fifteen minutes, and that fifteen minutes was up.

“Jen, I have to go.”

“I know,” she said. “But this doesn’t have to be the last time. We’ll talk again, soon. You know I love you.” She didn’t wait for him to end the transmission, but terminated it from her end, as if afraid neither of them would find the courage to go first.

“I love you, too!” Sisko whispered to the empty space where Jennifer had been. With a sigh he checked the readings and saw his three charges more or less in the same place they’d been last time he checked, in the company of a fourth party, no doubt still arranging for travel permits. He realized Crusher was probably waiting in the wings for him to sign off, and signaled her.

“Ask you something, Doctor?” he said once he had her attention.

“Certainly.”

“How do we know this whole mission isn’t a setup?”

Crusher put her hands in the pockets of her medical smock and leaned back in her chair, rotating it slightly from side to side.

“I’m listening,” she said.

“We’re inside the Neutral Zone in violation of treaty, on the basis of data sent to SI specifically to Admiral Uhura’s attention, supposedly from a Romulan official she once met on Khitomer.”

Crusher waited. She obviously knew he had more, but was hesitating. “And—?” she prompted.

“And wouldn’t this be just the perfect opportunity for a cloaked Romulan ship to pick us off before we even knew they were there or, worse, bring us in tow and take us back to the Empire as political prisoners for a show trial? And when we tried to tell them that we were working for their benefit as well as our own, they’d tell us there was no such disease within the Empire, and we were using it as an excuse to violate the Zone.”

This time it was Crusher who held the silence.

“Am I being paranoid, Doctor? Or have these thoughts occurred to you as well?”

She sighed. “As a matter of fact, they have. But there’s no question that there’s a very real disease killing people on both sides. Seems like an awfully elaborate hoax to pick off just one little ship. Now, why don’t you say what’s really on your mind?”

“All right, what about Zetha? How do we know she’s not a plant?”

“We don’t. But unless she’s been sent on a suicide mission, she’s as much at risk as you are.”

“How do you figure?” Sisko asked, growing heated. “If the ship is attacked, granted, we’re all dead. But I’m thinking of her signaling to her side that we’re here, or tampering with the tests Selar’s running in the lab…” He realized he was overreacting, and forced himself to calm. “I’m sorry. I know Selar backs up all her research and confirms it with you, and I keep an eye on Zetha anytime she’s in my vicinity, but I keep thinking there’s something more here, something we’ve all missed, even Tuvok, for all his security training. Something that could get us all killed.”

Crusher had the grace to wait until he was finished. “The same thoughts have crossed my mind, Lieutenant. But I wonder if we aren’t all guilty of just a little bit of species profiling here. Wouldn’t the joke be on us if Zetha turns out to be exactly what she claims to be? In any case, nothing we can do about it now except play the hand we’ve been dealt and see the game to its end.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like my friend Curzon,” Sisko muttered.

“Then I’ll take it as a compliment,” Crusher replied. “Time for me to log off. Good night, Lieutenant.”

“Good night, Doctor,” Sisko said, and waited for the chrono’s next signal.

As they were leaving, travel permits in hand, Tuvok asked Jarquin one thing more, something any Romulan might ask another.

“How often do you hear from your sons?”

He had been mindful of the small framed holos set apart from the clutter on Jarquin’s desk, of two handsome young men, close in age if not twins, whose features strongly resembled their father’s intermixed with those of what must be a beautiful mother.

Jarquin hesitated before he answered.

“I haven’t, since they left for the homeworld. It’s very common. They lose interest in their birth-world, lose touch with those they left behind. Many never speak to their families again. Maybe they’re ashamed of their roots, of coming from this place. They want to blend in, give their allegiance to their new home. Then again, there could be other factors, political unrest, censorship. I can say that to you, because you’re not government, but sometimes one wonders…”

“Indeed,” Tuvok said, pulling the hood of his parka up over his ears in preparation for the cold.

“Maybe you could—” Jarquin began, then thought the better of it. “Forgive me. I was going to ask, when you return to the homeworld, if you could make inquiries about my sons. Presumptuous of me, but…”

Tuvok knew his reply was illogical, but he made it nevertheless. “I will see to it, Citizen Jarquin.”

The door slid closed behind them, leaving Jarquin alone, watching the ever-swirling snow from his window, but thinking about butterflies.

Chapter 13

“I’ll put my Listeners on it,” Uhura promised. “A migration of that magnitude from an unallied world to Romulus should be easy to track. If Jarquin’s sons or any concentration of Quirinians are registered on the homeworld, we should be able to learn something, however tenuous. Meanwhile, I assume you’re scanning the so-called enclosed areas from orbit?”

“Affirmative,” Selar reported.

“And—?”

“And several regions appear to have been abandoned altogether. There are no life-sign readings other than those indicating small animal life-forms, most likely verminous.”

Rats, Uhura thought, suppressing a shudder.

“Of the other quarantined or ‘enclosed’ areas, most appear to be very sparsely populated,” Selar went on, “and there is evidence of reduced activity among the few remaining inhabitants. Scans show elevated body temperatures, indicating the likelihood of infection. Since I began scanning the village of Sawar less than one hour ago, there have been four fatalities in the quarantined area.”

“But there’s no way of telling for certain if that’s caused by our neoform,” Uhura suggested.

“Without actually collecting biosamples? I believe not.”

“It is unfortunate we were barred from traveling to the quarantined areas,” Tuvok interjected suddenly.

“Yes, it really is too bad,” Uhura agreed. “But of course I’d never tell you to disobey Citizen Jarquin’s directive and try to infiltrate those regions illegally.”

“Obviously,” Tuvok said. “A pity, since we do have hazmat suits against just such a contingency. And, given the necessity for bulky clothing in the Quirinian climate, it would be quite possible for us to conceal all but the face mask of a hazmat suit beneath our parkas. Further, were we traveling at night…”

“Hypothetically, of course,” Uhura said, her face as deadpan as any Vulcan’s.

“Hypothetically,” Tuvok agreed. “Of course.”

Selar watched this exchange with great interest. She wasn’t certain what was going on, but it intrigued her. Sisko, being human, understood entirely, and managed, just barely, to suppress a chuckle. A glance in Zetha’s direction told him she got it, too. Sisko crooked a finger at her.

“You come with me,” he said, indicating she was to follow him forward, out of earshot of the briefing.

Zetha shrugged. She had grasped immediately what was going on. But if Sisko felt it necessary to exert his authority, she would humor him.

“You begrudge me the knowledge that Tuvok and Selar intend to infiltrate the enclosed areas,” she observed when they were alone in the control cabin, where he had assigned her a seat far away from the instruments. “Why?”

“I begrudge you any detailed knowledge of this mission,” Sisko said honestly, frowning at one of the readings. The environmental control adaptor had been hinky since departure, but since when had it refused to respond? “I think the less you know, the better. There’s no guarantee you won’t run to the first Romulan you see with the information you already have—”

“No guarantee except Lieutenant Tuvok, who can no doubt outrun me,” Zetha said, too low for Sisko to hear.

“—and no idea what disposition SI’s going to make of you once this mission is over—”

“I assumed I would be sacrificed.”

She also said this so quietly Sisko almost didn’t hear it, but he did.

“Sacrificed? What are you talking about?”

Zetha shrugged. “I am still learning your language. ‘Executed’ might be a more accurate word, ‘eliminated’ easier on your sensibilities. But killed, in so many words.”

Sisko stopped fidgeting with the controls and gave her his full attention. “Run that by me again? You honestly believe Starfleet will have you executed once this mission is over?”

“It is what the Tal Shiar would do,” Zetha said.

“Then why in God’s name are you going along with it?”

Does he not see?Zetha wondered. No, of course he doesn’t. His life to this point has been far too soft. When he speaks so fondly of a dead mother who loved him, a father who taught him to cook, his wife, his son—a family, a place to belong, in so many words—how can he possibly know?

“Perhaps I don’t understand,” she said ingenuously, watching him out of the corners of her green eyes. “Is not the purpose of this mission to trace the origins of this disease, apprehend whoever has created it, and save the lives of those who might be afflicted by it?”

“Ideally, yes, but—”

“Then that is why I am ‘going along with it,’ as you say. When ‘it’ is over, so is my usefulness. You cannot imagine I will be allowed to return to your Federation knowing what I know?”

“That’s exactly what—” Sisko started to say, but stopped himself. “You can’t tell me you’re just here to help us. We’re strangers to you. Enemies, as far as your conditioning has taught you. There’s got to be another motive.”

Zetha shook her head, almost pitying him, as she had almost pitied the elites on her own world whom she had spent a lifetime mocking, eluding, pilfering from. He really did not understand.

“Every day I live is a day I live, human,” she said with a coldness no one so young should possess. “It is one day more snatched from the jaws of death. Understand that, and you understand me.”

At last Selar got the joke. Anyone who thought Vulcans had no sense of humor need only study her face. Her eyebrows threatening to disappear into her hairline, she did not trust herself to speak, but allowed the two trained operatives to have the floor.

“Well!” Uhura said at last, as if a decision had been reached. “My log entry will show that Albatrossintends to remain in Quirinian space while you complete your cover mission with a visit to the village of Sawar, which is badly in need of replicator parts. I’ll expect your follow-up report by this time tomorrow.”

“Affirmative,” Tuvok said, ending the transmission.

Selar allowed him a moment’s silence before she asked: “Lieutenant, am I to assume we will have need of those hazmat suits after all?”

At least the weather favored them. Quirinus offered the landing party one of its rare sunlit days. Citizens Leval, Vesak, and Zetha wore UV goggles to keep from going snowblind as they made their way on their short skis through an untouched alpine landscape beneath a cloudless lavender sky. The air was warm enough for Zetha to lower the hood of her parka and turn her face like a flower to the sun. Emulating her—if they were truly Romulan rather than Vulcan, they would be more adaptable to the cold—Tuvok and Selar did likewise.

It was hard to believe that only a few kilometers distant from this pristine beauty a wall sealed healthy citizens off from those suffering an agonizing death.

Tuvok and Selar wore their hazmat suits beneath their parkas, the face masks stored in rucksacks that also contained samples of the merchandise they had ostensibly come to Quirinus to sell. Zetha carried only a sample case in her rucksack, and wore no hazmat suit.

“We will require your talents as we mingle with the citizens on the ‘safe’ side of the quarantine enclosure,” Tuvok instructed her. “Obviously we will be forbidden access to that enclosure. We will appear to acquiesce, as long as it is daylight. After dark, Dr. Selar and I will infiltrate while you return to the ship.”

Their arrival in Sawar, a village sheltered in a valley surrounded by high mountains, was greeted with some curiosity and not a little suspicion. The curiosity they had expected. Offworld visitors seldom ventured beyond the major cities, and rumor had run ahead of them that they were selling not only genuine Romulan replicator parts (someday, Tuvok thought, he must ask Admiral Uhura where she acquired those) but Tholian silks, noted for their durability as well as the brilliance of their colors. Safe and warm inside their thick-walled houses, where they could remove the multiple layers of utilitarian clothing necessary to survive the climate, Quirinians often dressed quite resplendently. Orders for the silks were expected to be plentiful.

But why the suspicion?Tuvok wondered. The trio had permits from Citizen Jarquin, worn prominently displayed on their parkas. Had the effects of the plague in their village made the citizens distrust even that?

“You sense it, too?” Selar asked softly.

“Indeed,” Tuvok said. “And I believe we are about to learn something of its source.”

A group of citizens who had been milling about an outdoor information kiosk reading the day’s news had broken away and was heading toward them. The trio had perfected a response to just such an approach by now. Tuvok would speak first, Selar only if addressed directly, and Zetha only if the conversation ventured into an area, such as Romulan butterflies, whose nuances the other two might not be conversant in.

“You are Citizen Leval,” the group’s apparent spokesperson, a rawboned angry-eyed female almost as tall as Tuvok addressed him from behind a breather mask.

The entire crowd wore breather masks, not against the cold, but against the possibility of infection by outsiders. Illogical,was Tuvok’s first thought, since there is no concrete evidence that the disease is airborne.As the crowd moved toward them, a stout elderly man with what looked like a bulky antiquated medscanner in his hand was obviously reading them for signs of infection. One could only hope the scanner was too antiquated to distinguish Vulcans from Romulans.

“Correct,” Tuvok replied with a touch of arrogance, wearing his Romulan persona like a second skin by now.

He noted that even with the supposed security of the masks and the scanner, the woman still stood back at some distance. Quirinians, like Romulans, Tuvok had noted in their visit to Jarquin, only seemed to trust each other when they stood closer than arm’s length, a throwback, no doubt, to the age of swords when they had needed more room to safely draw arms. This woman and her constituents stood at a distance, the distance one might consider safe from casual contagion transmitted by a cough or sneeze.

“We were notified that your party would arrive today. You’ll have to wear these to go among us.” The woman thrust three face masks into his hand. Tuvok noted that she also wore surgical gloves, which she removed after her hand had made contact with his, and threw into a nearby disposal painted with a bright green sign signifying hazardous waste. “We can’t be too careful of strangers after what happened.”

“Citizen Jarquin has made us aware of your situation—” Tuvok began, but the woman interrupted him.

“My name is Subhar. I am magistrate here,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. “Ordinarily I’d invite you into the warmth of my house to conduct your business. But even as we speak, some of our most esteemed citizens are dying without remedy behind that wall…”

She nodded toward the end of the street, where the landing party could see that part of an ancient wall that had no doubt once encircled the first settlement here had recently been haphazardly bricked up once again. What looked like electrified wire topped the hasty two-meters-tall construct, and armed guards patrolled the perimeter.

“…so we will conduct our business outdoors, where the fresh air at least gives us a fighting chance against contagion.”

Subhar seemed to be struggling to maintain her composure. The landing party said nothing as she blinked back tears before they froze in her eyes.

“I didn’t want you here,” she snapped. “It seemed…in-appropriate. But we need the replicator parts, and one of my advisors…” She indicated a gray-haired elder, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his parka, who merely nodded in acknowledgment. “…reminded me that our future will not always be about death. So far no one outside the wall has gotten ill. This was what we did in ancient times, and it seems to have been effective. Some have said it’s barbaric, but what else could we do? We have contained the damnable thing, and we will need bright colors in order to celebrate the lives of those who died, after we have mourned their deaths. So you see why we must be wary of strangers, even though bearing official approvals,” Subhar concluded, her anger and sorrow having given way to a kind of weariness. “It was a stranger who brought the illness.”

“A stranger?” Tuvok dared after what he hoped was a suitable silence.

“He said he was from Qant Prefecture, but his accent gave him away. Clearly he was lying, but lying’s not a crime, not yet. After this, it might be. We never did find out where he really came from. By the time we investigated, the first casualties were already affected. He had no identification on him when we searched him.”

“What became of him?” Tuvok asked.

“Oh,” Subhar said, as if it were an afterthought. “We killed him.”

Tuvok reacted to this as a Romulan might, which was to say not at all. “Then he did not succumb to the illness?”

“No. But it wasn’t here before he came, and once we contained everyone he’d come in contact with behind the wall, no one else got sick. And now you’ve asked enough questions, Citizen. Show us your samples, and let’s be done with it. This weather won’t hold for long.”

As if on cue, the sun disappeared behind a fast-moving cloud, and the wind picked up. Motioning her visitors toward the news kiosk, where a counter was cleared for them to set their rucksacks down, Subhar and the townspeople gathered around, though careful that none of them touched their visitors or anything they had brought with them.

“It’s hit the fan,” Crusher told Uhura. “I’ve just received a memo from the C-in-C wanting to know what the hell—and I’m quoting here—kind of progress we were or were not making on this disease. Which, by the way, I’m told they’ve code-named Catalyst.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Doctor,” Uhura said wearily. “I’ve gotten the same memo.”

“The news media’s suggesting every rash or runny nose could be evidence of germ warfare. They’re quoting numbers in the millions.”

“At least we aren’t!” Uhura said a little more sharply than she’d intended. “Yet. I’ve got a press conference this afternoon to try to do some damage control. Can you give me a bone to throw them?”

“Nothing I’d want getting out to the public at large,” Crusher said, tossing her bright hair over her shoulders. “And, off the record, we’ll never develop a serum against something where everyone dies.”

Uhura thought of everything she’d learned about viruses in recent weeks. “Which leaves the genetic route.”

“Hypothetically,” Crusher said. “We finished mapping the human genome in the early twenty-first century. The Vulcans, not surprisingly, had their genetic codes down centuries earlier, and the Romulans probably have as well. There are some genes that all three species have in common, but—”

“Go on,” Uhura prompted.

“But a retrovirus that can infiltrate all three species at the genetic level, particularly one that mutates the way this one does…well, it took thirteen years to map the human genome. It took longer than that to cure HIV at the genetic level, even when we knew exactly what it looked like. This is more like cracking secret codes than practicing medicine.”

“So even if the away team succeeds in tracing this to the Romulan side…”

“There might be some political value in pointing out that they created it, but unless they’ve also got a cure up their sleeves, it’s not going to save any lives.”

“Political value in the negative sense,” Uhura mused. “A chance to let slip the dogs of war on both sides.” She shook her head. “Not if I can help it. I’ll give the C-in-C the same sweet talk I give the press. You get back to work.”

“Yes, sir,” Crusher said.

Despite the citizens’ unease over the deaths behind the wall, the “Romulan merchants” were doing good business. Zetha faithfully recorded several orders for Tholian silk, aware that in the corner of her eye Tuvok was assessing the wall, the guards, the odds of successfully infiltrating the enclosure. In one ear, a Quirinian matron was asking her whether she personally would choose the gold print or the green—

“Well, I’m assuming green for you, dear, because of those beautiful eyes, but I think the gold would look better on me, don’t you?”

–while in her other ear, Selar was dangerously close to blowing their cover.

“…curious about the flora and fauna extant in your warm season,” Selar was saying. “The preponderance of calcareous and dolomite rocks in combination with cretaceous sandstones and marls suggests an edaphic ecology dominated by small wildflowers with a very short growing season. Am I correct?”

That’s probably more words than she’s put together since we left Earth!Zetha thought frantically, noticing as Selar did not that some of the citizens were watching her more warily than they had, even with the fear of contagion, on their arrival. What in the name of Gal Gath’thong did she think she was doing? Without thinking, Zetha kicked her sharply on the ankle. The Vulcan did not wince, of course, but she did give Zetha an odd look and, much to her relief, stopped talking.

“Forgive me, Aunt, but all this talk of the warm season, while we and the citizens stand here freezing…. And it’s getting dark….”

“Of course,” Selar said, and they concluded their official business just as the clouds closed overhead and the snows began again.

The beam-out, Sisko thought, was one of the better ones of his career. He managed to pull all three of his charges up to the ship just long enough for Zetha to step down and Tuvok and Selar to seal up their hoods and the masks of their hazmat suits and then, while the citizens of Sawar were still talking among themselves about the goods they had just ordered—to be delivered, they assumed, on the next convoy arriving to take more of their sons and daughters offworld to Romulus—and even the guards patrolling the enclosure were momentarily distracted by the transporter sparkle, he pinpoint-beamed the Vulcans to one of the more abandoned sectors inside the enclosure, where they could do what they had to do.

“Corpses,” Selar reported, shielding her tricorder from the blowing snow with a mittened hand, which also muffled its whirring sounds as she scanned what appeared to be a storehouse of some kind, a heavy lock and chain securing its only door. “Well over one hundred of them, stacked several deep and chemically preserved, presumably until they can be cremated or interred.”

“One would think the cold would be sufficient,” Tuvok remarked, his own tricorder alert for signs of movement in the narrow, high-walled streets, where the wind howled around corners, adding to the chill.

Selar silenced her tricorder. “A charnel house. An attempt to at least contain all the dead in one place. Doubtless waiting until everyone has succumbed before any effort is made toward disposal.”

“Apparently stored here in the earlier stages of the disease,” Tuvok observed, indicating the frozen corpses littering the narrow street before them. “These others were not so fortunate. Can specimens be gathered from the recently dead?”

“Perhaps,” Selar said, kneeling in the snow to examine the two nearest them, an elderly woman and a child wrapped in a final frozen embrace against the perimeter wall. “Ideally, however, those still living would be preferable.”

“But to trouble them when they know that they are dying…” Tuvok suggested. Was it only the cold that made his voice husky?

“Indeed. But if the evidence they provide can prevent further deaths…”

Tuvok frowned. “I would be most interested in ascertaining the identity of the stranger whose arrival coincided with that of the illness. Lieutenant Sisko has us both on locator. I suggest we split up and communicate on discrete.”

“Agreed.”

Once again, Sisko was monitoring life-sign readings and talking to one of the holos. This time it was Uhura.

“Not good news on Jarquin’s sons,” she reported. “Or any Quirinian who emigrates to Romulus, for that matter.”

“From what I understand of the situation, Admiral, why am I not surprised?”

“Most of them are recruited by the military. The Empire essentially uses them for cannon fodder for the most dangerous missions. The ruling families have always preferred to use colonials on the frontiers. Looks like they’ve refined it to a science.”

“Glad it’s Tuvok and not me who has to give Jarquin that information,” Sisko mused.

“Status report?” Uhura asked, bringing them back to the present.

“Tuvok and Selar have both infiltrated the enclosure and, judging from the readings, except for the occasional patrol, they’re the only thing moving down there. They’ve split up. I’m assuming Selar’s gathering specimens. Tuvok said something about wanting to find out anything he could about the stranger the citizens claim brought the disease.”

“And Zetha?”

“Aft, puttering in the lab, last time I checked.”

“Do you check often, Lieutenant?”

Tuvok moved like a shadow. The lock on the storehouse door proved too strong for him to break, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pick it. But the mechanism was sluggish with the cold, and it took him longer than he expected. He had timed the patrols outside the walls earlier in the day, and now could only hope to be inside the storehouse and out of range of their scanners before they happened by again. His life-signs would read normal, not feverish, and the guards might consider that worthy of investigation.

At last the lock yielded to his skills, the massive door opened inward and, mercifully, did not either scrape the floor or squeak, and he slipped inside. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, it took all of his Vulcan discipline not to react to what he saw.

He had expected the corpses, but not the rats. They swarmed everywhere, feeding on the dead, hissing and squealing but refusing to give ground at his approach, swarming with the mad purposefulness of a single entity. Wondering if a rat bite would breach the fabric of a hazmat suit, Tuvok moved stealthily so as not to rouse them further. He also wondered if there was some way to warn Subhar and those outside the wall to exterminate the rats.

An enclosure in one corner of the vast, high-raftered room—doubtless at one time an office of some sort—drew his attention. Perhaps there were records, lists of the dead, even information about the interloper who had purportedly brought the illness among them.