by Dave Stern
Whatever had taken his life, Archer decided, had not inspired fear in him, even if he was running away. He got the impression that the man had sagged gently to the ground, as if he had simply no longer been able to hold himself erect.
Phlox crouched over the body and scanned it briefly. He glanced up at Archer and said softly, sadly, “Already dead, I fear. Very recently.”
Archer gave a single regretful nod.
The doctor studied his readouts, then gently touched the dead humanoid, examining the eyes, nose, mouth, and torso. “I’m not detecting anything microbial in his system…” He looked up at Archer, his features furrowed with puzzlement. “In fact, I can’t really tell you what he died of. My first guess is that these readings are normal for him…but it would help if I had a healthy member of his race for comparison.”
“Captain,” T’Pol said quietly. Archer took a step toward her and glanced over her shoulder at her scanner. “Chances of finding such a being are becoming slimmer. Since we have left Enterprise, many more life-forms have died. I’m now reading only eleven on this island. The signals are growing increasingly faint.”
“Let’s move,” Archer said again, gazing down at the dead man, feeling oddly reluctant to leave him without some acknowledgment, some rite to mark his passage. But as the captain turned to face the alien city, he realized the necessity for speed—else they would be needing a memorial to mark the passage of an entire civilization.
As the quartet strode quickly over a shale-and-sand street toward the building T’Pol indicated, they were met by grisly sights: pedestrians fallen as they walked, in different stages of decomposition under the bright sun. Airborne vehicles carrying single passengers, sometimes pairs, had dropped from the sky, leaving mangled wreckage and corpses—some on the ground, others caught in the swaying trees, or on shrubs, or lying atop a bier of brightly colored flowers. At one point, they passed a body being attended to by a carrion bird; Hoshi briefly closed her eyes, but moved stalwartly onward. Once again, Archer got the impression that the victims had surrendered easily and unexpectedly to death, in the midst of going about their lives.
He was finally glad for the awkward suit, with its self-contained atmosphere; the smell of decay must have been overwhelming. He thought of Earth’s past plagues, and the terror that must have been felt by the survivors. During the Black Plague in medieval Europe, there had been so many dead, the living could not bury them all; a similar thing had happened during the plagues that swept mankind after the Third World War. And it had happened to these poor people, in the midst of their beautiful paradise.
He maintained silence, forcing himself to concentrate on the waiting survivors who needed their help; only Hoshi spoke, uttering a single plaintive remark.
“I only hope there’s someone left for me to try to talk to.”
No one replied—not even Phlox. The streets were still, quiet save for the sound of wind rustling through long leaves, and the cries of seabirds.
The landing party soon reached their destination: a building with shimmering, nacreous walls that coiled delicately skyward, its shape reminding Archer of a nautilus shell. Large windows overlooked the sea.
Yet the building’s beauty belied the horror that waited inside: as Archer and his group entered, they were met by an eerie sight. In a large sun filled room with a view of the sparkling beach, some sixty or seventy bronze-skinned people sat cross-legged on the padded floor—some fallen forward, faces pressed to the ground, others fallen back against the walls. The room was crowded beyond its capacity, so that late arrivals knelt in the room’s center, pressed so tightly against their neighbors that even in death, they were held upright. All wore the same gentle, relaxed expression of the first casualty the away team had encountered.
Hoshi failed to entirely suppress a gasp; even T’Pol’s eyes, behind her visor, flickered for an instant as she steadied herself to do a quick scan.
“Survivors this way,” she said softly, pointing down a gleaming corridor.
Phlox turned his broad body directly toward the sight, absorbing it fully. “A shame,” he said. “A peaceful people, able to build such a marvelous city…And now, most of them gone.”
Archer put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go find those survivors, Doctor.”
Phlox turned, shaking his head as he moved alongside the captain. “You read of such things happening in history, but you never wish to see such a thing yourself….”
T’Pol led the way down the corridor; they passed several rooms, all of them filled with exotic-looking beds made of a shimmering gelatinous material that caught Archer’s eye, but there was no time left to stop and inspect them. Atop each one lay one, sometimes two, bodies; after a time, Archer stopped looking.
A moment or two later, the Vulcan said, with the faintest hint of something suspiciously akin to excitement, “Survivor, Captain. This room….”
They entered; Archer moved aside so Phlox could attend to his patient at once. Eagerly, Hoshi moved beside the doctor, in case she was needed to communicate. The alien—this one, judging by her more delicate features and smaller size, female—was partially encased in a bed composed of a blue-green gelatinous substance suspended in the air.
Phlox scanned the woman, then exchanged a knowing glance with T’Pol.
“What?” Archer demanded of the two.
Both paused, then Phlox spoke. “This woman has just died.”
“Another survivor,” T’Pol added swiftly. “Approximately zero-point-one-seven kilometers down the corridor….”
Archer made his way into the hallway at a speed just shy of a full run; T’Pol out paced him, leading the way as Hoshi and Phlox followed. Two doors down, the Vulcan entered what appeared to be a large, fully-equipped medical laboratory. Several suspended beds lay empty, but on the one nearest the entrance lay a patient—half covered by the body of another alien, who had apparently been standing over the bed when he was stricken.
The bed itself was glowing, phosphorescent, slightly pulsating; Archer could feel the warmth it emanated as he helped T’Pol lift the body of the male off the prone patient.
As the Enterprise officers gently eased the male to the floor, Phlox leaned forward and ran a scanner over his chest. “Dead.” The doctor turned and swiftly made his way over to the reclining patient—a female. “But she’s alive!” His tone was one of pure triumph; as he ran his medical scanner over her, he reported, “But weakening with each second. Electrolyte readings differ from those found in the dead victims….” He opened his medical case and prepared an injection. As he administered it, the blue-green bed flickered, then began to brighten, shot through with glowing phosphorescent veins.
“A nutrient bed,” Phlox murmured, while he attended the woman. “Probably to counteract the weakness. I’ll wager it’s to help stabilize her electrolytes….” He trailed off, absorbed in his work.
Archer, meantime, could not help noticing the expression on the male victim’s face; of all the dead the captain had seen, only this man’s countenance was not peaceful. Indeed, his features were contorted with what a human would call outrage, even—Am I reading my own cultural cues into this? Archer wondered—recognition, as if he had recognized the cause of his own death and been incensed by it.
“Anyone else still with us?” Archer asked softly of T’Pol, who was busily scanning for readings.
Her eyes narrowed. “No survivors in this building. But roughly point-five-four kilometers northeast, there’s one fairly strong signal left.”
“And the others?”
Her gaze grew pointed. “There are no others, Captain. Not on this island. Not anymore.”
You had said there were eleven, Archer almost said, then realized the futility of challenging the accuracy of T’Pol’s reading. In the moments since they’d arrived on the island, nine of those survivors had died.
He made a decision. “Stay with her,” he told Phlox, who was busily bent over the surviving female. “Hoshi, you come with us. T�
�Pol and I are going to go find the last survivor and bring him back here; we might need your help communicating after all.”
“Fascinating medical apparata,” Phlox murmured, his gaze fixed on his patient, but Hoshi nodded in acknowledgment.
“Aye, sir.”
Despite the fact that they were in the midst of a city, T’Pol led the captain and Hoshi into what seemed to be a livestock facility, where smooth skinned quadrupeds, looking rather like overfed manatees on legs, lay motionless, perished in their separate stalls. Troughs of untouched grain and water lay in each pen. Overhead were storage lofts holding containers of what appeared to be feed.
There was an endearing ugliness about the creatures, and the fact that the pens were clean and in fact padded for comfort made Archer somehow sadder than he’d been before. It was hard enough to witness the death of a sentient being, who was aware of his own mortality; but there was a special poignancy about the demise of a less intelligent creature who trusted others for its care. The image of his beagle, Porthos, flashed in Archer’s mind.
A single glance at Hoshi’s heartbroken expression made Archer look away.
“All recently deceased,” T’Pol said clinically, passing them with no more than a cursory glance.
Archer hardened his attitude and followed the Vulcan closely, focusing on the task at hand. “So the plague—or whatever’s caused this—has affected their animals, too.”
“With the exception of some of their avian fauna,” T’Pol remarked—then came to an abrupt halt, lifting a hand for silence.
Archer stopped behind her; Hoshi, third in line, bumped into him.
The two women heard the noise first—of course, given T’Pol’s acute Vulcan hearing and Hoshi’s amazing exolinguistic ears. Both looked upward—expectantly—at the same area in one of the lofts.
Hoshi uttered a few tentative sounds in the aliens’ tongue, her voice a little higher-pitched than normal—whether from proper pronunciation or fear, Archer could not tell. A greeting, perhaps, or an offer to help.
What happened next happened so quickly that for Archer, it all blurred together.
An alien face—deep bronze, with round, luminous, living eyes, appeared overhead amid the stacks of feed containers. A male, given his size and bulk; the low-ceilinged loft forced him to crawl on hands and knees. He scrambled to the edge of the loft and looked down at the landing party.
Glowered, actually, but Archer’s observation was overwhelmed by the jubilant thought: Alive! He’s alive and strong enough to talk!
And, indeed, the alien opened his lipless mouth and let go a sound. An unarticulated sound, more like a low growl that began deep in his broad chest and left his throat as a shriek…
…As he came springing down, arms outstretched, one webbed, many-fingered hand grasping, its target Hoshi’s throat.
The communications officer screamed as the alien leapt atop her, knocking her down hard—so hard that, despite the size of the helmet, Archer could hear her skull thud.
Weakened or not, the alien produced a small object—a utility knife, Archer thought—and lifted it upward with the clear intent of bring it down in the vicinity of Hoshi’s neck.
Archer had no way of knowing whether the knife could pierce the strong fiber of Hoshi’s suit, of knowing whether the alien could do her any serious harm. He responded out of pure instinct—drawing the phase pistol, putting his gloved finger on the trigger, aiming and preparing to fire.
But before he could do so, another’s phase blast, painfully precise, caught and illumined the alien in the instant before he could bring down the blade.
He shuddered, hesitated in the air a half second, then fell heavily to one side, allowing the terrified Hoshi to scrabble backward, crablike, on her arms and legs.
Archer reached Hoshi’s side first; she grimaced and rubbed the back of her skull—in vain, since her suit kept her from any hands-on contact with the injured area. “I’m fine,” she told the captain ruefully. “I tried to say that we were here to help, but the alien…He didn’t seem sane.”
The two humans glanced over at the fallen man, and at T’Pol, who bent over him with her tricorder. Her pistol was already reholstered, her air already that of the impassive scientist; yet there was the subtlest catch in her tone as she looked up at Archer and announced:
“Dead, Captain. Given his weakened state, my stun blast killed him.”
Look for STAR TREK fiction from Pocket Books
Star Trek®
Enterprise: The First Adventure • Vonda N. McIntyre
Strangers From the Sky • Margaret Wander Bonanno
Final Frontier • Diane Carey
Spock’s World • Diane Duane
The Lost Years • J.M. Dillard
Prime Directive • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Probe • Margaret Wander Bonanno
Best Destiny • Diane Carey
Shadows on the Sun • Michael Jan Friedman
Sarek • A.C. Crispin
Federation • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Vulcan’s Forge • Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
Mission to Horatius • Mack Reynolds
Vulcan’s Heart • Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Books One and Two • Greg Cox
The Last Round-Up • Christie Golden
Novelizations
Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Gene Roddenberry
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier • J.M. Dillard
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country • J.M. Dillard
Star Trek Generations • J.M. Dillard
Starfleet Academy • Diane Carey
Star Trek books by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The Ashes of Eden
The Return
Avenger
Star Trek: Odyssey (contains The Ashes of Eden, The Return, and Avenger)
Spectre
Dark Victory
Preserver
Captain’s Peril
#1 • Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Gene Roddenberry
#2 • The Entropy Effect • Vonda N. McIntyre
#3 • The Klingon Gambit • Robert E. Vardeman
#4 • The Covenant of the Crown • Howard Weinstein
#5 • The Prometheus Design • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
#6 • The Abode of Life • Lee Correy
#7 • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
#8 • Black Fire • Sonni Cooper
#9 • Triangle • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
#10 • Web of the Romulans • M.S. Murdock
#11 • Yesterday’s Son • A.C. Crispin
#12 • Mutiny on the Enterprise • Robert E. Vardeman
#13 • The Wounded Sky • Diane Duane
#14 • The Trellisane Confrontation • David Dvorkin
#15 • Corona • Greg Bear
#16 • The Final Reflection • John M. Ford
#17 • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock • Vonda N. McIntyre
#18 • My Enemy, My Ally • Diane Duane
#19 • The Tears of the Singers • Melinda Snodgrass
#20 • The Vulcan Academy Murders • Jean Lorrah
#21 • Uhura’s Song • Janet Kagan
#22 • Shadow Lord • Laurence Yep
#23 • Ishmael • Barbara Hambly
#24 • Killing Time • Della Van Hise
#25 • Dwellers in the Crucible • Margaret Wander Bonanno
#26 • Pawns and Symbols • Majliss Larson
#27 • Mindshadow • J.M. Dillard
#28 • Crisis on Centaurus • Brad Ferguson
#29 • Dreadnought! • Diane Carey
#30 • Demons • J
.M. Dillard
#31 • Battlestations! • Diane Carey
#32 • Chain of Attack • Gene DeWeese
#33 • Deep Domain • Howard Weinstein
#34 • Dreams of the Raven • Carmen Carter
#35 • The Romulan Way • Diane Duane & Peter Morwood
#36 • How Much for Just the Planet? • John M. Ford
#37 • Bloodthirst • J.M. Dillard
#38 • The IDIC Epidemic • Jean Lorrah
#39 • Time for Yesterday • A.C. Crispin
#40 • Timetrap • David Dvorkin
#41 • The Three-Minute Universe • Barbara Paul
#42 • Memory Prime • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
#43 • The Final Nexus • Gene DeWeese
#44 • Vulcan’s Glory • D.C. Fontana
#45 • Double, Double • Michael Jan Friedman
#46 • The Cry of the Onlies • Judy Klass
#47 • The Kobayashi Maru • Julia Ecklar
#48 • Rules of Engagement • Peter Morwood
#49 • The Pandora Principle • Carolyn Clowes
#50 • Doctor’s Orders • Diane Duane
#51 • Enemy Unseen • V.E. Mitchell
#52 • Home Is the Hunter • Dana Kramer-Rolls
#53 • Ghost-Walker • Barbara Hambly
#54 • A Flag Full of Stars • Brad Ferguson
#55 • Renegade • Gene DeWeese
#56 • Legacy • Michael Jan Friedman
#57 • The Rift • Peter David
#58 • Faces of Fire • Michael Jan Friedman
#59 • The Disinherited • Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger
#60 • Ice Trap • L.A. Graf
#61 • Sanctuary • John Vornholt
#62 • Death Count • L.A. Graf
#63 • Shell Game • Melissa Crandall
#64 • The Starship Trap • Mel Gilden
#65 • Windows on a Lost World • V.E. Mitchell
#66 • From the Depths • Victor Milan
#67 • The Great Starship Race • Diane Carey
#68 • Firestorm • L.A. Graf
