“Computer,” Talma said. “Ready the decontamination chamber in lab B.”
Crusher leaned up against the wall and watched as the planet’s survey team jumped into action. There was no evidence that any of them had been unconscious less than ten minutes ago.
“Ensign Rikkilä,” Crusher said. Rikkilä turned away from a conversation she’d been having with Muñoz and Malisson. Crusher gestured for her to join her.
“I was getting their histories,” said the ensign. “Before the team was beamed down for the mission, they did comprehensive scans of the surface.” She shrugged. “There was no sign of any kind of harmful life-forms or viruses.”
Standard operating procedure. “What exactly do you remember?” she asked Rikkilä. “When did the dizzy spell come on?”
The ensign began to speak in a nervous, rapid-fire cadence. She had been in the water and then noticed that Muñoz had collapsed on the beach. Crusher recorded her account into the tricorder; she needed to hear from everyone. Without any kind of clear-cut cause, the next step was to understand what had happened.
“Ensign,” Crusher said when Rikkilä had finished, “I want you to get statements from everyone. Get as many details as you can.”
“Yes, sir.” Rikkilä paused. “What are the scans showing? I feel fine now.”
“Your scans were all normal.” Crusher studied the team. “The recovery was so fast. I’d say there was something on the beach.” Perhaps a strange microorganism the scans hadn’t discovered. No, that didn’t make any sense. The survey team had already gathered samples from the beach without any adverse reaction.
Crusher tried not to think about the refugees currently strewn across Federation starships. Kota was supposed to be for them. This last remaining survey was intended to be just a formality.
The station didn’t have a proper medical lab. Even the replicator wasn’t rated for medical material.
“Riker to Crusher.”
Riker’s voice jerked Crusher out of her thoughts. She was aware the team was listening in, even if they were trying to be surreptitious about it.
“Report,” Riker said.
“They appear to be okay, Will.” Crusher flicked her gaze across the team. “But something clearly happened.”
“Do you have any reason to keep them in quarantine?”
Crusher curled her hand, pressing her fingers into her palm. She had been hoping to delay breaking quarantine until she finished talking to the others.
“I feel fine,” Solanko offered, and the others nodded in agreement.
“Doctor Crusher?” Riker asked.
“Nothing is showing up in my scans,” Crusher said with a defeated sigh. “Will, this is an unfamiliar planet—”
“That’s been cleared by Starfleet. You know the high commissioner wants answers. We have to examine those samples.”
Crusher looked at the team. All of them appeared to be healthy and vibrant. It would be so much easier to deal with a mystery like this in her lab.
“Let me do one more round of tests.”
* * *
The tests found nothing.
Crusher had reluctantly let the rest of the crew out of quarantine so they could return to their duties. She had stayed behind to examine Data, who had been isolating himself outside after walking back from the beach. Once the space was cleared, she called him in to see if he might be able to provide any answers.
“How do you feel?” she asked him, running her tricorder over him for the third time, looking for any hint of an irregularity. Although she usually had Lieutenant La Forge’s help when examining Data, he’d been her patient long enough that she knew what his readings should look like.
“I did not experience any symptoms as did the others,” Data said. “Likely due to my being an android.”
“Weren’t you also separated from the others?”
“Yes. I had moved farther up the beach when I received the call from Lieutenant Talma that Lieutenant Solanko had collapsed. But I was not any farther from Lieutenants Talma and Solanko than the two ensigns.”
Crusher frowned as her tricorder reported normal readings. They had been spread equidistant across the beach. Data was the only one apparently unaffected and did not appear to be carrying the contagion on his person, as all of the others had recovered. A localized toxin seemed the most likely suspect. Something on the beach…
“While you were collecting samples,” she asked Data, “did you notice anything unusual about the beach? The air? The water?”
“Everything was as expected based on the Federation reports.” He looked at Crusher, his head tilted. “I am sorry I could not be of more use.”
“It’s not your fault, Data.” Crusher smiled thinly at him. “I can’t find any reason to keep you in isolation. Or myself.” She told herself that the station was isolation enough; she would need to keep an eye on Commander Riker. Given what she’d seen so far, he wasn’t likely to start showing symptoms.
“Let’s meet that deadline,” she said as she pushed the door open.
* * *
The following morning, Crusher was the only one awake; she’d had trouble sleeping. The bed in the station’s sleeping quarters was hard and unfamiliar. The doctor couldn’t shake the feeling that she had made the wrong decision in breaking quarantine. Something had happened. Damn the high commissioner and her deadline.
But there was nothing in their systems. No sign of infection or foreign antibodies. Just normal, healthy Starfleet officers.
Pulling a cup of coffee out of the replicator, Crusher slipped outside of the station. The horizon was limned in pale orange light that deepened into the rich purple of the Kotan dawn sky. The stars had faded into pale freckles across the expanse.
She sipped the beverage, its heat warming her face; mornings were apparently chilly here. For the millionth time since yesterday afternoon, she studied her tricorder. They had all said the same thing: a sudden onslaught of dizziness and then collapse, their thoughts racing. The effect immediately faded when they were transported back to the station.
“Doctor Crusher?”
She jumped. Data was standing in the station’s entrance.
“You are up early.”
“I had some trouble sleeping.”
“You were not the only one. I heard several members of the team get up during the night. I was in the laboratory, working through the backlog.”
Data had been the only member of the sampling team who hadn’t been affected, which only cemented her belief that they were dealing with something biological. Something that wasn’t in the Federation databases and did not show up on any scan.
Crusher leaned against the wall, her coffee cooling in its cup. “You know, Data, I requested to come on this away team because I thought it would be some enjoyable downtime.”
“It is fortunate that you are here, Doctor,” Data countered.
“Fortunate?” Crusher sipped her coffee and gazed out at the rustling grass, moving like the ocean in the dim morning light.
Her combadge chirped.
“Riker to Crusher. Report to sleeping quarters.”
“You said you heard people getting up last night?” she asked Data as she darted back into the station. Riker was waiting for her outside the sleeping quarters.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, already running her scanner over Riker.
“I’m fine,” he said as the tricorder confirmed it. “It’s the others, the ones who went to the beach. Probably nothing—”
Crusher frowned and pushed her way into the sleeping quarters. No one was in bed, which was something. Solanko and Malisson were already dressed, and Talma was pacing around in a draping Bolian robe.
Rikkilä was gripping her tricorder. “Ensign Muñoz has a slightly elevated temperature. Thirty-seven point five degrees.”
Muñoz gave a wave from the corner of the room, his hair still mussed from sleeping.
“What is the problem?”
“Dreams,” Ri
kkilä said.
Riker stood in the doorway, and once again Crusher considered that the entire station was a quarantine zone. She and Riker had to be contaminated.
But Crusher didn’t remember dreaming. “I’m not following.” She turned to Riker, who shook his head.
“We all woke up last night around the same time,” Solanko began. “Me and Amanda ran into each other out by the replicator. We talked.”
“We’d had the same dream,” Malisson added.
“Now, I wouldn’t go that far,” Solanko said. “Not identical.”
“They were close enough.” Talma stopped his pacing and turned toward the doctor. “I had it too. I heard the two of them talking.”
Crusher turned to Rikkilä, who had perched herself on the edge of Muñoz’s bed. Both of them nodded.
Crusher considered all this. She hadn’t heard them stir, but it was probably during those few hours she had managed to fall asleep.
“What was the dream about?” she asked.
“The beach,” Rikkilä said.
“But it wasn’t the same,” Muñoz said. “Everything was brighter.”
Rikkilä shrugged. “Yes. But I was in the water, getting thrown around by the waves, and then I got tossed up into the dunes and sank into the sand.”
The others murmured in agreement. Solanko said, “I got pulled down into the sand. A common theme, right?”
Everyone nodded.
“It was what was under the sand,” Rikkilä said. “People I’ve known throughout my life, all talking to me at once. I couldn’t make out anything.”
Muñoz said, “People I haven’t seen in years. Others I didn’t recognize.”
More murmurs of agreement.
If this is contagious, Crusher thought, it hasn’t jumped. It had only affected the beach team, so it couldn’t have a long incubation period. And that was assuming it even was an infection. The shared dream suggested some kind of psychic bond. Despite being on the beach, Data was unaffected—clearly it was bio-based.
“Ensign Rikkilä,” she said. “I’m pulling you off the lab work. You’re going to help me get to the bottom of this.”
Rikkilä rose, clutching her tricorder.
“Collect a second blood sample from the beach team,” Crusher continued. “And load your scans from this morning into the station computer. No one is going out to collect new samples until I have a clearer picture of what happened.” What’s still happening, she corrected herself.
“That’s fair,” Riker agreed.
“One other thing.” Crusher turned to Solanko. “Those irregular sand samples you mentioned yesterday. I need one.”
8
The air thrummed, and Troi felt dizzy from the excitement of the crowd. Hundreds of people were pressed into Isszon Temple, their voices low, but there was a constant murmur in the back of her head. The Enterprise officers had managed to slip into seats to the right of the stage. Her mother had offered her a place in the Fifth House’s balcony, but she wanted to sit with the guests.
“Will there be more dancing?” Worf asked, his voice jolting her out of her reverie.
“What?” Troi laughed. “Oh, Lieutenant, there’s an entire pageant involved.”
Worf nodded an acknowledgment as the lights dimmed throughout the temple, bringing everyone’s voices to a soft hush. A single circle of light appeared on the stage, illuminating the softly billowing curtains.
“Five thousand years ago,” a melodic female voice rang out through the temple, “in late antiquity, a lyre player, a taitath dancer, a poet, a sculptor, and a ship’s captain met at a crossroads—”
Troi sank into her chair. When her mother told her about the pageant preceding the unveiling, she’d failed to mention that they were starting with the story of the founding of the five Houses. This was going to last all night.
She tried not to think about the captain, having to sit through all this onstage. At least the High Guests were tucked away behind the curtains.
“They made a pact,” the voice continued as the circle of light widened to show five actors, each representing one of the five Houses. The story continued in a slow, graceful pantomime. Mother had told it to her when she was a girl and it came back to her in pieces. The journey through the haunted forest, the great battle at Mount Alain, the masquerade ball where the five founders met again many years later.
She could feel Worf shifting beside her. “I do not understand what this has to do with the three treasures,” he whispered.
“Just wait,” Troi said.
Eventually, the Houses were founded, which was marked by a burst of music, a flood of stage lights, and the reveal of the guests, all lined up beside their corresponding founder. The audience politely applauded.
“And from the first of these Houses,” the narrator said, her voice swelling through the temple, “a hero was born: Xiomara, daughter of the First House, She Who Lost the Way, Keeper of the Three Treasures!”
This brought a louder round of applause.
“Finally,” Worf mumbled.
Troi smothered a laugh. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” She glanced at him sideways and found him looking back at her, affection radiating off him.
The stage light changed, turning softer and murkier, and an actress dressed in a green gown and towering headdress, the traditional depiction of Xiomara, stepped out. “All the thoughts have gone silent!” she cried. “The First House is in grave danger!”
The pageant continued, moving through the story. Xiomara, her lost telepathic ability, the impending threat of the invaders from the stars, the Daor, the group making their way to the mountains where the First House was founded. The actress playing Xiomara flung herself about the stage in delight, weaving around the guests as they stood stiffly in their costumes, blending into the backdrop of the stage. Eventually, she fetched glittering reproductions of the three treasures, each House leader stepping forward and hoisting it above their head as they recited lines from the Xiomaran epic.
“Too much dancing,” Worf said.
“It’s not like you have to be up there.”
He studied the captain.
“Xiomara defeated the Daor invaders with three everyday objects,” the narrator said as the actress dodged holographic Daor and swung the oversized Enshrined Disk at their bulbous heads. Eventually, the Daor flickered away, leaving a victorious Xiomara surrounded by the replicas of the three treasures.
The actress took a deep bow as the crowd erupted into cheers and tossed flowers filled the air. Blossoms showered down around her onstage, drifting like snow. Many of the older Betazoids in the crowd stood and sang out the final lines of the Xiomaran epic, the melody flooding through the temple.
“We still have not seen anything,” Worf grumbled. “No Klingon would take so long to get to the point.”
“Betazoids are all about the journey,” Troi told him, even though she agreed. She caught the raw’bah flower she had tossed up lightly—she’d rather take it back to the Enterprise than fling it at the stage.
The actress playing Xiomara stepped forward, and a circle of light surrounded her, blacking out the rest of the stage. The audience quieted and she began to speak, her voice clear and bright.
“On that day,” the actress said, “Xiomara turned down the marriage proposal of Anton Rus’xi of the Fourth House. As a gift of lament, she gave him the urn she used to capture the Daor captain.”
A rather nervous-looking Benzite in the Early Restoration robes of Create stepped into the light and accepted the prop urn. The light was bright and Troi was close enough to see the trembling tendrils above his breathing apparatus.
“Xiomara accepted the marriage proposal of Rohana Ahmo of the Third House, on the condition that she would leave her home and accompany Xiomara on all of her adventures across Betazed. As a dowry, she gave to Rohana’s parents the disk she used to behead a Daor warrior in ritual battle, preventing further slaughter on both sides.”
A human woman in the sam
e Early Restoration robes stepped forward. She had the air of a holodeck star and she shot a bright smile out to the crowd as she accepted the prop disk.
“As for the spoon Xiomara used to dismantle the Daor’s communications, those she left with her nephew, Harshod of the First House, who took on the mantle of House leader in her absence.”
The actress handed off an oversized prop spoon to a Vulcan in a floor-length green tunic.
“For the next five thousand years,” the actress said, her voice soaring, “these three treasures were kept in the Houses. Never brought together as they were in the Battle of Cataria.”
The actress paused and Troi sensed the anticipation of every single audience member. She felt the prickle of the hairs on her arm, a strange and unfamiliar surge of Betazoid pride.
“Until tonight,” the actress said, to a hushed and reverent room.
She stepped back as the light widened and the layers of fluttering curtains dropped away, one by one. Troi leaned forward on her seat, her heart thudding. She could just make out the outline of the display case behind a shimmery gold curtain.
“For the first time in five hundred years,” the actress said, grabbing hold of that final curtain, “the Keepers of these artifacts have brought them out of their ancestral homes to Isszon Temple.” Her smile widened, she sent out her thoughts, and there was that strange reverberating effect of mind and tongue.
“Tonight, we bring together the Hallowed Urn of Rus’xi.”
Murmurs of excitement rose up from the crowd.
“The Enshrined Disk of the Third House.”
Someone up on the balcony let out a gasp of delight.
“The Sacred Silver of Xiomara!”
The actress yanked down the curtain. For a moment all Troi could see was flowing, rippling gold. The fabric drifted down to the stage, revealing the display case, glowing faintly behind its force field.
Empty.
At first, Troi couldn’t register what she was seeing.
She felt the first swell of confusion. Of panic. Of anger.
The actress felt it too. Her smile became manic, plastered on. She seemed terrified to turn to the display case and confirm what the audience was telling her.
Shadows Have Offended Page 6
