Fire On High (8 page)

Granted it was possible that certain sections of Zondarian society were undergoing a "retro" wave of style, but she strongly suspected that she was in fact witnessing something from many years back: two Zondarians battling it out, probably members of the two castes that had been in engaged in a civil war that had stretched back centuries.

One image after another began to flutter past her, some on the floor, others on the wall and ceiling, and still others simply wafting through the air like flights of fancy: women giving birth, people arguing, eating, fighting, dying. They seemed to occur with no particular order, no consistency. It was . . . it was almost as if she was witnessing some sort of stream of consciousness, or perhaps the reverie of a dreamer.

Oh please,
she thought,
don't let this world turn out
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to be a sleeping giant who winds up waking up and
destroying the entire place. We've been through something like that once already, and that was entirely
sufficient for one lifetime.

She turned a corner and it was everything she could do not to gasp out loud. It wouldn't have made much difference if she had, really, since she was alone, but nonetheless it was the principle of the thing. She just didn't like loud exclamations of astonishment. It wasn't proper for a Vulcan woman, even one with Romulan blood in her. That didn't always mean that she was able to prevent herself from displaying inappropriate behavior, but she restrained herself whenever she was able to.

The room she was now entering seemed to go on forever, and there was more of that marble-like material as far as the eye could see. Once again she saw herself, but this time she was quite positive that she was indeed seeing a reflection since her tricorder was giving her readings off the walls.

But there was something in the center of the room—or at least what she fancied to be the center, since she couldn't accurately determine the parameters and so make a mathematical determination—

that had completely engaged her attention.

It was a column that seemed to stretch up forever. It bore a general resemblance to the marble-like walls, but it appeared softer, even porous. Perhaps even—

and her heart began to race with excitement at the thought—
organic?
Some sort of techno-organism?

The columnar structure was a dark, dusky brown, and as she looked up and up, she saw that it appeared to branch off in its higher reaches. There were cross-connectors that ran off in a variety of directions.

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And at its base, there were . . . devices.

They appeared attached to the structure, part of the structure but also capable of separating from it. They were a variety of shapes, made from apparently a variety of materials, and Soleta couldn't even begin to guess what any of them did. The tricorder was yielding no useful information. The alloys were all new to her, the shapes not analogous to anything was in any records.

The energy was definitely coming from within the column, but it was like nothing that she was readily familiar with.

"No," she said to no one in particular. "No, that's . . . not quite right. I've seen something like it,"

and she tried to remember what it was. The fact that she didn't remember immediately was extremely disconcerting to her; Soleta was not one prone to forget-ting things, and there
had
been something, something that was . . .

Suddenly she was struck with a thought, and it was one that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. As if she had been physically hit, she spun on her heel, her head whipping around, and she called out, "What did you do to me?"

There was no response.

"What did you do to me?" she asked again, and this time she was actually driven by sufficient irritation that she tossed aside caution and strode with quick steps toward the towering column in the room. She stood before it, her arms folded, and said, "There is information missing from my mind. Information that was pertinent to what I am discovering here today.

Were you responsible for its loss? Was that the reason for the connection? To see what I knew and didn't
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know, and then 'delete' inappropriate information from me? Well?"

Still there was no reply, which was fairly acceptable since she was not truly expecting one. She clapped her hands once and then briskly rubbed them together.

"All right," she said. "Despite my earlier experience with you, I am not the least bit intimidated by the notion of a second encounter. If this is what you desire, then it will be on your head . . . or . . . whatever," she finished. And with that announcement, she placed her hands against the column.

She had no intention of forcing her mindmeld upon whatever she might encounter. The mindmeld was a delicate technique at best, and certainly not designed to be utilized as some sort of mind rape or weapon.

She was, however, determined to let whatever this entity was know that it had assaulted her, and that she was none too happy about it.

The surface of the column was warm to the touch, but she was not surprised. She felt something within . . . recoil . . . as if it were surprised that she had dared to seek it out.

"Our minds are merging," she intoned slowly. "Our minds . . . are merging."

Go away.

She felt it rather forcefully, and it surprised her.

Whatever the sensation in her head, it was speaking with petulance bordering on fear. Certainly not what she had expected.

You brought me here. Why do that and then tell

me
. . .
to go away?

I made
. . .
a mistake .
. .
should not have brought
you here.

Waves of concern seemed to be rolling off it. Slowly,
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gently, she eased her mind probe farther and deeper.

She felt as if she were surrounded by blackness, falling ever farther, and all around her there were objects in the darkness skittering away, running in fear, like an army of infants seeking to avoid the advent of a stranger.

You wanted company . . . you wanted to talk . . .

Go away.

I am
. . .
here . . . we are here. . . . Our minds . .
.

are merging and we will be one . . . and you will not be

afraid.

I AM NOT AFRAID!

It came at her with such force that it nearly knocked her off her feet. This time, though, she was ready for it, and she maintained her footing as she clutched the column.

Tell me . . . who you are . . . what you are.

You do not ask
. . .
questions of me.

We are one. . . . We are merging. . . . You cannot

hold back from me. . . . You took from me . . . give

back to me . . . what you took . . . and give to me . . .

what you hide . . .

I do not . . . want you.

Yes you do. . . . You would not have brought me

here . . . if you did not. . . . That is truly why I am

here. . .
.
You want . . . you want . . .

"What are you
doing
here?"

The voice was loud and sounding quite upset, and it completely jolted Soleta from the concentration necessary to maintain the meld. She looked around in surprise, feeling disjointed and disoriented, which was not uncommon whenever she first withdrew from a mindmeld, and certainly understandable considering the present circumstances.

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She saw a Zondarian standing some feet away, but immediately she saw that he was floating several inches off the ground. He "walked" toward her slowly, his feet moving but not touching the ground.

He looked rather old for a Zondarian, although it was difficult for her to be sure in even the best of circumstances, and these were hardly those. He was bald, as were all Zondarians, and his skin was leath-ery and shiny, with the customary sheen that made it look as if the Zondarians were perpetually wet. Since she was positive that she was seeing a projection of some sort, she couldn't be one hundred percent sure of such subtleties as skin texture.

The newcomer's eyes were set wide apart, and when he blinked, it was with eyelids that were clear. In real life, when Zondarians blinked, their eyelids made very soft clicking noises. They did not in this case, however; perhaps a further indication of the fact that he wasn't really there.

"Who are you?" demanded Soleta.

"I inquired of you first," replied the image. In his

'walking" manner he circled her, never taking his eyes from her. "Will you answer?"

"I am Lieutenant Soleta of the
Starship Excalibur,"

she told him.

The image stopped and appeared to be studying her closely. "Starship?" he asked.

"A spacegoing vessel."

"Remarkable," he said softly. "And your ears—are they a product of this starship? They appear rather unusual."

"I am a Vulcan," she said, "from the planet of the same name. I was exploring the upper regions of this territory, in an area called 'Ontear's cave'—"

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Peter David

"I know what it's called," he told her, sounding a bit arrogant about it.

"And was psychically assaulted and then dragged down here against my will."

The image seemed to look rather surprised. "Is this true?" he demanded.

"You have no reason to doubt my—"

But he waved dismissively. "I was not addressing you," he said rather archly. He paused, waiting for a reply from whomever it was that he
was
talking to.

Soleta took a step toward him, cocking her head with curiosity. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"My name is Ontear," he said in a very distracted fashion. He seemed to be listening to something as if it were originating from very far away.

"Ontear. The Ontear who died five hundred years ago, carried away at the hands of mysterious gods?"

He stopped, his attention suddenly fully back on her. "Say again?"

"Ontear. The noted prophet and seer, lifted away into the skies by a swirling mass of air, commonly called a tornado but believed, in this instance, to be some sort of divine object."

And with an expression of gentle sadness he asked,

"Is that what happens to me?"

Soleta had been continuing to approach him, but at that point she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.

You may have just destroyed a time line,
her mind informed her.
You might well have informed someone from the past of their future . . . and in doing so,
have virtually guaranteed he will avoid it.
"I . . . do not know," she said slowly, desperately trying to figure out some way in which to salvage this awful
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mess that she had inadvertently stepped into. "Not for certain. Reports are varied and conflicting, and there is no sure way to tell what truly happened.

There are ... any number of possibilities and—"

But he was shaking his head, his arms folded, and he merely looked amused at her discomfort. "You need not worry, my dear," he said. "I am too old already to worry about such matters, and my fate—

even a violent one—holds no fear for me. Do not be concerned that I shall run from whatever destiny has in store for me, thereby upsetting the delicate balance of the space-time continuum. I shall embrace it, just as I have eagerly embraced all knowledge." He sighed.

"We do have another problem, however."

"We do?" asked Soleta.

"I am afraid so. You are here, my dear, due to a malfunction. As I'm sure you've surmised, you see before you a technology representing a perfect synthesis of living and mechanical technology. However, no device—even one of ours—is foolproof. The one here, I am afraid, has broken down. It brought you to itself when it should not have. It mistook you for a . . ."

"For a what?" Soleta wanted to know.

"A lover," sighed Ontear. "It then realized its mistake, but you were already down here and so . . .

there it is."

"There what is?" She felt, not for the first time, that she was one half of a conversation and not following the other half.

"The materials you have seen, the valuable hints and glimpses of other technology, the data you have collected with that . . . device. What is that called?"

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"A tri—" She paused. She was, after all, talking to an individual from the past. She'd already made a horrible error by mentioning his fate. The last thing she was going to do was compound it by making mention of any other accurate information.

"A tri . . . ?" he prompted curiously.

"A try-trying-to-avoid-explaining-it machine," she said, wincing slightly at how tortured that sounded.

"I see," said Ontear, and she wasn't sure but there appeared to be the slightest touch of amusement on his face. "Very well, then. The point is, none of this was meant for you. And so something must be done about the situation."

"Something." Soleta pondered the significance of this a moment and then asked, very quietly, "Are you saying you plan to kill me?"

"That will hardly solve the problem," replied Ontear. "I have no idea what information you may have already passed along to whomever you arrived with. Even if you never return to your point of origin, there may simply be more people following your lead.

No, I daresay that your demise will really attend to none of the difficulties that have presented themselves."

"That is most fortunate to hear." She did not, however, relax her guard for even a moment.

"No, I am afraid this entire installation will have to be destroyed. Your death will simply be an unfortunate byproduct."

And the energy readings on her tricorder suddenly spiked off the scales. The cause was immediately, and painfully, evident, as the energy-filled column began
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