The Lost Era: Well of Souls: Star Trek (30 page)

“I’ll overlook that reference to my age,” said McCoy, though his watery blue eyes sparkled. “You know, you’re about the only person I let get away with that.”

“Do you good, somebody take you down a notch or two. You always have been a stubborn old coot.”

“And you’re one of my best firebrands. My God, I don’t think there’s anyone else can get my blood pressure going. Remember that case where that Andorian ... ?”

“Mac,” said Stern, loudly. “Memory Lane some other time. I need help here.”

McCoy pooched his lips in a sulk. “Memory Lane’s what we old-timers do best. Besides, you used to be a lot more fun. Get a couple bourbons in you and ...”

“Would you cut it out?” Stern hated it when McCoy played the age card, something he did when he wanted things his way. True, he
did
look much older than she remembered: the wrinkles more deeply etched, that white thatch of hair a little more unruly and in need of a good combing. Well, that was only to be expected. After all, McCoy was over 100. “Mac, I have a time limit here. They’re taking him out in an hour, maybe less. Then, we’re heading to the Draavids, and there’s no way anything you send via subspace will get through. Now, are you going to help, or what?”

“All right, all right.” McCoy held his hands up in surrender, his tone letting her know that he understood he was pushing her too far. If she’d had the time and inclination, she might have played along, and not just because McCoy had been her best, and favorite, teacher. “Jo, I’ll be straight with you. I’ve read your report—mighty fine piece of detective work there, by the way, you picking on the discrepancy in those knife wounds and dirt samples, mighty fine. Probably would have passed most of these younger folks right by.”

“Thanks. But, to tell the truth, I wish I’d never thought to look at the damn stuff.”

McCoy’s face pruned. “Whatever for? He was caught in his own lie, far as I can see. That dirt,” he made a sharp downward motion with his closed fist, “nail in the old coffin. Places him somewhere totally different.”

“But that’s what bothers me, Mac. On the one hand, you’ve got the fact that Halak lied. On the other, you’ve got Starfleet Intelligence conveniently making connections that rely on part-fact and part-conjecture. And just because Halak lied—well,
omitted
the first fight, the meeting with this Arava character ...”

“Kind of a big hole there.”

“It still doesn’t follow he lied about Ryn III, see what I’m saying? This whole revenge theory thing, it sounds too, too ...”

“Connect the dots?”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.” McCoy batted away the comment with a flap of his hand. “Before your time. What you’re saying is you’re hearing true, true, unrelated.”

“Or true,
false,
unrelated. That’s right.”

“Okay, so you want me to do some digging around. The reports on Thex and Strong,” McCoy tugged at a wattle of loose flesh under his chin, “yeah, maybe I can get to them. And how about I nose around about this Burke character, and Batanides?”

“That’d be great, Mac. We’re in the dark here.”

“All right, let me think on this, let me think,” said McCoy, musing. His rheumy blue eyes, deep in their valley
of wrinkles, took on a faraway look, and he touched a contemplative finger to his lower lip. To her dismay, Stern saw that he’d developed a slight palsy she didn’t remember seeing before. McCoy might make jokes about his age, his surgeries, but he really was getting up there in years. With a pang, she realized that she hadn’t made the time for him the last time she’d been back to Earth. She knew this was because if she spent time with McCoy, she might be tempted to stay. She really didn’t know what their relationship was. They were colleagues, friends. Not lovers. Well, not
physically
anyway—Stern just wasn’t the romantic type—but McCoy was her closest friend, closer than Garrett. Maybe McCoy looked at Stern the way a father did a daughter. Or maybe they were just two lonely people who enjoyed each other’s company. Or maybe there was love there, somewhere.

“By the way,” she asked, “how’s the heart?”

“What?” McCoy looked up, startled out of his blue reverie. “Oh, that. Which one?”

“Putz. The
new
one.”

“Oh, I knew what you meant. And it’s fine, fine.” McCoy thumped his chest with a closed fist. “Make these things better and better. You watch. I’m going to outlive a couple of Vulcans I know. Certainly long enough to see that ship you’ve abandoned me for get decommissioned. You mark my word, Jo Stern, when that day comes, you are just going to come
crawling
back here, begging me to take you on staff.”

“Tell you what, Mac. That happens, I’ll buy the drinks and we’ll get three sheets to the wind, okay?” She folded her arms and leaned in. “Now, you going to do this?”

“My God, you’d plague a fence post. All right, here’s what I can do,” said McCoy. “I know a couple people; I’ll put some feelers out, see what I get, all right?”

“Fast.”

“Fast.”

“That’s a start. Thanks, Mac. Really. I owe you.”

“I already know what I want.”

“What’s that?”

“You take your next leave with me. We’ll go on a trip. Some nice R and R.”

Stern hesitated for a split second then said, “You got it.”

“Good.” But McCoy eyed her carefully. “You’re still as nervous as a turkey around Thanksgiving. We Georgia boys have a more impolite saying, about skillets and such, but this is an unsecured channel.”

“Never stopped you before.” Stern chafed her arms. “Sorry. Just want to
do
something, that’s all.”

“You want to
do
something?” McCoy pursed his lips into a wet rosebud. “Tell me, you give Halak a clean bill of health?”

“I discharged him from sickbay three days ago. Why?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing. I was just thinking: How long that poor soul been languishing in your brig?”

“Since yesterday.”

“Yesterday.” McCoy’s snowy white eyebrows reached for his hairline. “Over twenty-four hours without medical attention. And now he’s going to spend another four, five days, no medical care, cooped up on a godforsaken Vulcan warpshuttle, no doctor to make sure he’s comfortable, change his bandages.” He paused. “Give him his vitamins and such.”

“Vitamins.” Stern’s eyes slitted. “Vitamins?”

“Vitamins.” McCoy’s look was one of supreme innocence. “There are some powerful bugs out there, Jo,
powerful
bugs.”

The silence was so complete Stern imagined McCoy heard her swallow even over subspace. “Mac,” she said, “he’s in the brig—in isolation. No visitors.”

“Who’s talking visiting? You’re chief medical officer. And he’s your patient.”

After a moment, Stern’s lips split in a broad smile. “Mac, if my day gets any better, I may have to hire someone to help me enjoy it.”

“I’ll do it for free.” McCoy looked supremely pleased. That’s my girl.”

Two hours later, Bulast said, “
T’Pol
signals they’re ready to depart, Captain.”

Despite having prepared herself, Garrett experienced a stomach-twisting lurch of apprehension, the way she had when she was a little girl and someone jumped out of the shadows. She kept her voice bland. “Very well, Mr. Bulast. Wish the
T’Pol
a safe journey.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Mr. Castillo?”

“Course for Draavid cluster already laid in, Ma’am.”

“Very well.”

Glemoor said, “The
T’Pol
is moving off, Captain.”

“On screen.” The main viewscreen winked, and Garrett watched as the Vulcan warpshuttle peeled away. A moment later, the stars behind the T’Pol’s warp bubble blurred, and then the shuttle shot into warp and disappeared.

Good-bye, Halak.
Garrett let out her breath in a long, slow exhalation.
Godspeed.

She straightened. “All right, Mr. Castillo. Let’s get going. Warp four. Now.”

You
can always tell when a ship goes to warp,
thought Halak. Not that something very dramatic happened. The floors didn’t shake; the bulkheads didn’t rattle. If the ship and its engines were sound, you didn’t feel a thing. But Halak knew. The ship just
felt
different. So he knew, without being told, when they’d left
Enterprise
behind.

His quarters were Spartan: a bunk, a square lozenge of a pillow. A chair and a small round table bolted to the floor. No companel, no replicator, no portal. The walls were gray. They’d better make good time; else he’d go stir-crazy wondering what the hell had gone wrong with his life.

And this woman Burke: Obviously, SI hadn’t briefed her about his mission to Ryn III. Well, standard intelligence procedure: No dissemination of information, for pity’s sake, else everyone might know their right hand from their left. Batanides had better clear things up.

The door hissed, and Burke stepped into the room. “We’re under way,” Burke said. “I came to see if you were comfortable.”

Halak almost laughed. “The mattress is hard.”

“The mattresses are worse in prison. Mind if I sit down?” She didn’t wait for his reply but took the room’s only chair. Crossed her legs and clasped her hands over her left knee. “Commander, how would you like to save your career?”

It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting, and he wasn’t prepared for his reaction either: an overwhelming sense of relief. It was all a mistake; she was going to tell him she knew all about Ryn III and the Breen and the Cardassian connection, and it was all some horrible mistake.

“I’ll take silence as a
yes.
Well, then, how much do you know about the Cardassians? Specifically,” Burke gave him a look that was almost coy, “how much do you know about the Hebitians?”

“Ten days,” said Su Chen-Mai, pacing. His moon-shaped face was as purple as an overripe Denebian plum. “Ten days, and you haven’t picked up a thing, Kaldarren. We have nothing to show for our time,
nothing!”

Kaldarren sat, his eyes tracking back and forth. Chen-Mai
was having another tantrum, and Kaldarren knew from experience that it was best to wait him out. It helped that after eleven hours of crawling over rubble, he was too bone-tired to argue.

They were in the biosphere’s common room where they took their meals and had their arguments. The room smelled of men’s sweat, sour canned air, and the apricotlike aroma of Catrayan porridge Kaldarren hadn’t been able to force down because his stomach was in knots. He wanted something to drink though; he’d even settle for some of that awful bourbon Rachel liked so much. The air filters in the Cardassian biosphere were relics. The longer they stayed, coming and going and bringing more dust and debris that adhered to the electrostatic charges they built up on their suits, the more Kaldarren’s mouth tasted like grit.

Chen-Mai frothed. “And what do you bring back? Just some useless artifacts.” He swept a dismissive hand at a trio of sculpted stone figures. “Nothing
valuable
at all!”

Spoken like a true mercenary, not a scientist. Well, there was a saying for it, something he’d picked up from Garrett: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Kaldarren ran a finger over the rough stone of one figure. The statue was of a chimera, part lizard
(snake?)
and part woman but with the folded wings of a bat. The left edge of the stone had fractured, distorting what Kaldarren thought was the face. The figure bore some resemblance to what the Cardassians claimed were ancient Hebitian artifacts—specifically, the Hebitian god of the Underworld. As he remembered it, the Hebitian god was usually rendered as a dragon alongside the king who was portrayed as a plump, white, slumbering, bull-like Cardassian
toj’lath.

But this figure was altogether different. For one thing, it was a woman, not a man, and for another ... Kaldarren’s finger traced the chiseled features. The stone had suffered over time, but there was the faintest suggestion of a half-mask of some sort, one that covered the face down to the nose. The mask was very odd. As far as he knew, the lore about the old Cardassian religion made no reference to masks of any kind. He wouldn’t know for sure until he could study the statue under a high-resolution magnifier, and access a database to check on similar finds, if any. The Cardassians weren’t known for their openness.

Kaldarren looked up at Chen-Mai. “I guess it depends on your definition of value. This is valuable. There’s nothing like it in any collection as far as I’m aware.”

Chen-Mai’s black eyes sparkled like polished stones, but he didn’t stop moving. “Don’t play games. You know
exactly
what I’m talking about. These statues, these potsherds and other things you’ve found, they’re not why we’re here.”

“I know why we’re here,” said Kaldarren. He swallowed, and felt his throat ball with the effort. “Chen-Mai, has it ever occurred to you that there might not be anything to pick up? Maybe our information is wrong.”

Chen-Mai stopped his pacing long enough to fix Kaldarren with a poisonous glare. “That’s not what the legends say. That’s not what
you
said when you read them.”

Chen-Mai had done the translation but Kaldarren decided to be charitable, and prudent. “Maybe we were wrong.”

“
I
wasn’t wrong, not then and not now.”

“All right. You weren’t wrong.” Kaldarren lifted his hands in a weary,
well-what-do-you-want
gesture and let them fall to the table. One of the boys (Jase, probably, he had always been a messy eater) had left a halo of crumbs. Kaldarren pressed the pad of his right forefinger to the table, dabbing up crumbs that he rolled between his fingers.

Thinking about Jase made him tense. The boys had been very quiet at dinner that night. True, there wasn’t a lot for them to talk about; no school, and both Kaldareen and Leahru-Mar were gone most of the day. But Kaldarren couldn’t recall a time since they’d come to this planet when
the boys had been so ...
guarded.
Kaldarren considered the word then found it apt. Yes, they had been
guarded,
both of them. In fact, Kaldarren had been tempted to probe Jase for an instant, just to see.

So, he had.
After all my lectures about privacy.
Kaldarren was embarrassed to admit it now to himself that he
had
probed his son: a light touch, nothing more.

The surprise had come the instant a finger of his thought brushed along the contours of his son’s mind. Jase had blocked him.
Blocked
him: It was as if Kaldarren stood on the other side of a pane of milky glass, unable to see through to what lay beyond in his son’s mind.

How did Jase
do
that? How long has Jase been
able to
do that and me not even know? Does
Jase
even know, or is it reflex?

Aloud, Kaldarren said, “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I assumed that telepathy is a constant. That was foolish, probably. We know that some species have no known telepaths, and that one species’ telepathy may be far cruder than another’s. It’s also possible—
probable,
in fact—that there was something here once, a long time ago, but there isn’t now. Time wreaks havoc on many things, Chen-Mai, not just stone statues.”

“No!” Chen-Mai hurled the negative like a spear. “I presume
this
probability. You’re not the right telepath for the job.” Chen-Mai’s upper lip curled, revealing a line of yellowed teeth. There was a gap between Chen-Mai’s two front teeth, and when he spoke, Kaldarren saw the tip of the smaller man’s tongue undulating, like a fat worm.

“You’re not strong enough,” said Chen-Mai, his tongue working against his teeth. “Maybe I need a better, stronger telepath.”

“Very possibly,” said Kaldarren, soberly. “Certainly that’s your choice.”

“Choice.” Chen-Mai’s features corkscrewed. “Maybe, but I don’t have time,
or
money. Oh, but money doesn’t mean anything to you Federation people.”

“That doesn’t stop us from needing resources, or pursuing a dream. Money isn’t the only motivator, Chen-Mai.”

“Well, it is for me. I have an employer who will be very unhappy if I don’t keep my end of the bargain, and
I
will be very unhappy not to get my money.”

“We still have four days before the next Cardassian patrol.”

“Are you saying you’ll find it by then?”

Kaldarren hesitated. “Possible, but unlikely. Chen-Mai, we may have to face the fact, however unpleasant, that the translations are in error.”

Chen-Mai’s mouth opened in protest, but Lam Leahru-Mar stirred. “What if it were shielded in some way?” the Naxeran said. His frills trembled, and he smoothed them down with his left index finger in a slow, meditative gesture. “What if there
is
a portal, but there’s something that blocks you from finding it? If I built something that powerful, that’s what I’d do.”

Chen-Mai exhaled a noisy snort. “And where’s the power source?”

“There’s all that magnetic disturbance in the mountains,” Mar offered. “Maybe it’s shielding a power source deep underground.”

Chen-Mai gave the Naxeran a withering look. “If that were the case, there ought to be an energy signature. No machine is so perfect it doesn’t have a signature.”

Mar turned his sleek black face toward Kaldarren. “What about the ion storms? The radiation? Could they interfere?”

It was tempting to pawn off his failure on that, but Kaldarren shook his head. “It shouldn’t. Honestly, I don’t know.”

There was, of course, one possibility none of them had voiced: Chen-Mai and Mar because they wouldn’t have considered it, and he because the idea filled with him with an icy dread. What if the
portal
didn’t want to be found? Or what if the portal didn’t want
Kaldarren
to find it, or only wanted him to find it on its own terms? A strange way to think of a machine, but telepathy was more than intimacy. Telepathy was a form of becoming something distinctly different from what you were. When a telepath touched another mind, a little piece got left behind—like a fingerprint, or a footstep in cooling tar—and imprints, done often enough for long enough, became permanent and were not washed away. So it stood to reason that a device, one attuned to and used by enough telepaths over a long period of time, might itself become ... selective, perhaps even sentient.

A machine with a
soul.
Kaldarren suppressed a shiver. He doubted Chen-Mai would understand
that,
so he opted to stick to the obvious. “Let’s face facts. We’ve based this entire operation on ancient Cardassian legends. Legends aren’t facts.”

“But they’re
something
,” said Chen-Mai. He was pacing again. “And there’s something here. Why would the Cardassians bother patrolling otherwise?”

“It’s disputed space. The Federation’s been haggling with the Cardassians over this region for years.”

Chen-Mai gave a dismissive, backhanded wave. “But the Cardassians are stretched so thin between their expansion and their conflicts with both the Federation and the Klingons, it makes no sense to worry about a region they can’t legitimately lay claim to, even if they did have bases here once, like this biosphere. But they still patrol, and why? Because there’s something here.”

“They could just be spoiling for a fight. All Federation incursions are supposed to be cleared first.” Kaldarren sighed. “Even discounting that, your
something
could be anything. Or what if they patrol because this is the way Cardassians do things?”

Mar spoke up. “Kaldarren’s got a point. If there’s something here, why not put a contingent on the surface instead?”

“Am I supposed to know how, or what a Cardassian thinks?” Chen-Mai raged. “Ask Kaldarren!
He’s
the telepath!”

Kaldarren was tempted to point out that telepaths weren’t all-powerful; Vulcans couldn’t meld with Cardassians, and he couldn’t read a Breen. Instead, he held up the masked statue. “Look, Chen-Mai, I can’t even tell you with any certainty whether this is Hebitian, or Cardassian, or, well, take your pick. Just because these artifacts happen to be on a dead planet in disputed, possibly Cardassian, space doesn’t mean that the people who used to live here are connected to Cardassia, or the Hebitians.”

“That’s not what the legends say.”

Kaldarren made a face. “The Cardassians claim that the Hebitians
may
have been telepaths. Anyway, claims aren’t proof. If true, why aren’t there modern-day Cardassian telepaths? Betazoid telepaths trace their powers back in evolutionary time. Our telepathy didn’t evolve
out
of us; it got
stronger
.”

Chen-Mai leaned forward on his knuckles. “Ah, but that’s the key, don’t you see? The Hebitians
evolved
on Cardassia. They’re telepaths. Somehow, they developed a psionic portal, a gateway attuned to individual neural patterns. A properly attuned telepath activates the portal, and
poof!”
He leaned back, throwing his hands up and splaying his fingers, as if releasing birds. “Here one second, there the next. It explains
how
they got
here.”

“
If
these ruins are Hebitian,” said Kaldarren. “A big
if.
That still doesn’t answer why these portals aren’t on other worlds, or why Cardassians aren’t telepathic.”

“I don’t know, and it’s not my problem,” said Chen-Mai. “All I know is, the Cardassians watch this planet—not just this region but
this planet
—and I think it’s because they’re worried somebody will find and then use the portal.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Kaldarren said, his weariness settling on him now like a heavy blanket. They were arguing about a phantom. “Find this magical portal and access it, if I can? Other than the specs, what are you’re going to do if we find it?”

Chen-Mai’s jaw set. “You don’t need to know. Your job is to find the portal. Figure out how it works. Then you get what you want, and I get what I want.”

I don’t know what I want anymore.
“And what if I can’t, Chen-Mai?” Kaldarren fixed him with a searching look. He enjoyed seeing the smaller man flinch away, worried that Kaldarren might be probing. However tempting that might be, however, Kaldarren wouldn’t reach into Chen-Mai’s mind unless he had no other choice.
Probably awfully slimy in there.

“It’s not a question of
can’t.
You don’t have that luxury, Kaldarren. You have four days. Then the Cardassians come back, and we need to be gone.”

“What about your employer? What if we don’t find the portal?”

“You don’t have to be a mind reader for that one,” said Chen-Mai.

Kaldarren left shortly after, taking the statues with him. Lam Leahru-Mar waited until the Betazoid’s footsteps faded. Then he looked over at Chen-Mai.

“What if he can’t do it?” The Naxeran’s black skin was sweating so much he looked dipped in clear glaze. “Or what if he does, but the Cardassians catch us? We still have to rendezvous with Talma. And what are we going to do with Kaldarren and that boy of his? No witnesses, Chen-Mai, that’s what Talma said.”

Chen-Mai had dropped into a seat across from the Naxeran. Now he fixed Mar with a baleful look. “You let me worry about Kaldarren and the boy.”