by Greg Cox
“Thanks for the assist,” he said as they fled into the warm tropical night. “Your timing was just about perfect.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
CHAPTER
6
“I’M FINE. REALLY I AM,” KES INSISTED.
“You nearly drowned!” Neelix said. “I’ve never been so frightened, except for maybe when the Kazon captured you, or when we were trapped inside that giant space creature, or when the Female Caretaker tried to destroy us. . . .”
Kes sat on the edge of a biobed in the sickbay while The Doctor scanned her with his medical tricorder. She would have liked to have changed out of her wet bathing suit, but Neelix had insisted that she be checked out by The Doctor the instant they returned to Voyager. Indeed, they had beamed directly to the sickbay from the planet’s surface which made her feel slightly ridiculous. Aside from a slight cough and a bit of a chill, she felt fine.
Sort of.
“Tell me the truth, Doctor,” Neelix said. His striped bathing suit seemed equally out of place in the sickbay. “Is she going to be all right?”
“I certainly think so,” The Doctor replied, “although I must admit that the appeal of immersing oneself in a large body of water eludes me. Neither of you are equipped with gills or fins; evolution clearly intended you to stay on dry land.”
“Oh, it was marvelous,” Kes said. She could still remember how exciting her first trip to the ocean had been. “At least, it was at first.”
“And then?” The Doctor asked. He put his tricorder down on a counter and eyed her carefully.
Kes hesitated. Now that she was back in a familiar environment, her experience out in the harbor seemed unreal and ephemeral. Could she merely have imagined those despairing wails, that suffocating sense of entrapment? It didn’t seem possible, but she could not think of a more plausible explanation, nor did she know what she could do about the voices even if they were real and not an auditory illusion created by the waves and her wandering thoughts. She could still hear those anguished voices echoing through her memory. She shivered involuntarily, feeling an icy chill that had nothing to do with her damp swimsuit and the temperature of the room. The Doctor noticed her trembling and produced a blanket of thermal insulation that he wrapped around her shoulders. “Tell me about it,” he urged her. “What’s the matter?”
Kes nodded, tugging the blanket tightly around her. “It seemed so real,” she began, “and it started without warning. One moment I was floating blissfully on the waves, feeling the warmth of the sun above me and the cool water below, then I heard them whispering in my ear.” She told The Doctor and Neelix everything she experienced, sparing no detail, while they looked on with concern and curiosity on their faces. “What do you think?” she asked them finally. “Did I just dream those voices?”
The Doctor looked thoughtful. “It’s possible, I suppose. Back on Earth, human beings used to immerse themselves in sensory-deprivation tanks in order to stimulate similar illusions and hallucinations. It was regarded as an effective way to probe one’s own unconscious mind, on the dubious assumption that there was something of worth to be found there.” He shook his head disdainfully. “I know I’ve always managed perfectly well without an unconscious.”
“You see,” Neelix said, visibly relieved, “there’s nothing to it.”
“On the other hand,” The Doctor continued, “there remains much we do not know about the latent psychic abilities of the Ocampa mind. I’m afraid I cannot rule out the possibility of a genuinely extrasensory experience.”
“Oh,” Neelix said. His face fell. He obviously wanted to dismiss her nightmare as an insubstantial daydream. Kes admired his stubborn optimism, but found herself unable to let the matter go so easily. She wasn’t sure which option she preferred: that she could be frightened to near panic by the phantasms of her mind, or that she had inadvertently tapped into a very real cry for help? She tried to imagine what sort of extreme suffering could produce the anguished screams she had heard, feeling horrified at the ghastly implications of those hopeless shrieks and that inescapable darkness.
“It wasn’t just voices,” she pointed out. “There was something wrong with my eyes as well. Everything was black and close and confining. I felt like I was trapped, unable to breathe.”
“Again,” The Doctor said, “it is difficult to distinguish between hysterical blindness and a psychic invasion of some sort.” He scowled, and Kes sympathized with his unhappiness. The Doctor prided himself, she knew, on his encyclopedic medical knowledge; she could imagine how frustrated he felt to be unable to produce a more definitive diagnosis. “Although, considering how each of you has only one lung apiece, you might want to reconsider any deep-sea diving you may have on your vacation plans.”
“Don’t worry, Doctor,” Neelix assured him. “Kes won’t take any unnecessary risks while I’m around.” He helped her down from the biobed. The duranium floor felt cold to her bare feet. “Maybe we should talk to Tuvok about what happened. He’s the expert on telepathic powers.”
That thought had already occurred to Kes. “Good idea,” she said. She folded the silver thermal blanket and placed it on the biobed. Goosebumps covered her exposed arms and legs. “But can I please change into some dry clothes first?”
• • •
Chakotay dimmed the lights in his cabin. Kneeling on the floor, he spread out the contents of his medicine bundle before him: the feather of a blackbird, a polished stone, and the small electronic device known as an akoonah. He placed the device against his forehead and closed his eyes.
“Akoo-cheemoya,” he chanted. “I remain far from the sacred places of my grandfathers, far from the bones of my people. We seem to have found a safe harbor, and yet my spirit is troubled. If it is permitted, lend me your guidance. Show me the truth of this place so that I can better help those who journey with me. Let me find the answers I seek.”
Chakotay could not have told himself exactly why he could not fully accept Voyager’s good fortune in chancing upon Ryolanov. Perhaps, he mused, too many years in the Maquis and the Delta Quadrant, too many betrayals by Seska and others, had left him slightly paranoid and slow to trust anyone and anything. Thank his ancestors, then, that there was still one place he could always turn to when his mind was clouded by doubt.
He activated the akoonah. Electrical impulses stimulated slumbering portions of his brain while drawing a veil over his sensory intake. Generations ago, his ancestors had used psychoactive herbs to induce a similar meditative state; the akoonah provided the same effect without polluting his blood with potent chemicals. The physical world receded from his consciousness, giving way to an inner realm of symbols and spirits. His breathing slowed. His heart beat in time with the eternal rhythms of creation. In his mind, if not in what he usually considered reality, Chakotay opened his eyes.
He found himself staring up at a barren mountain-top. No trees, moss, or other vegetation softened the grim forbidding aspect of this jagged peak. No snow had crowned the mountain, nor had any wind buffed its harsh edges. There was only the brutal black granite itself, thrusting up from the rocky ground like a spear of stone. The mountain was lifeless, colorless. He saw only the uniform gray solidity of the mountain, silhouetted against a dead white sky, and the impenetrable black shadows cast by its looming crags and canyons. The sun was a mere pinprick of light on the distant horizon, too cold and far away to do any good. An icy wind chilled his bones.
“Where am I?” Chakotay asked aloud. This desolate place looked like none of the metaphysical realms he had explored in the past. It was hard to imagine anything dwelling in such a bleak landscape, let alone the honored spirits of his ancestors. He looked for his spirit guide, the totem animal who acted as both his teacher and his twin in the world beyond, but saw no sign of his guide. He could not feel its presence anywhere, which filled his soul with dread. Never before had he felt so alone inside his own heart and mind. He consid
ered opening his eyes for real, deactivating the akoonah and returning to the here and now of his cabin on Voyager, but shook his head. He had to believe the spirits had brought him here for a reason. He would not turn back until he had learned whatever there was to be learned in this dead and discouraging land.
He stared again at the very peak of the mountain looming in front of him. He thought he saw something move at the top of the peak. For an instant, he glimpsed a glowing pair of eyes, flashing in the pale sunlight. His spirit guide, he wondered, or something far less benevolent? He looked and looked for another sign upon the mountain, but only the stone and shadows revealed themselves.
Very well, he thought. He began to climb the mountain. “Because it’s there,” he told himself, grinning despite his grim surroundings. He knew the answer, if there was an answer, waited for him at the end of the climb. The only alternative was to return to the waking world empty-handed, and that was not an option he was ready to accept. “Don’t go away,” he whispered to the presence lurking above. “Here I come.”
The climb was hard and tiring. There was no trail, so he had to make his own way, clutching at handholds no larger than cracks, sometimes scrambling on all fours over the jagged rock face. The gray stone was freezing to the touch. The cold rock stung his fingertips until they began to grow numb. The higher he climbed, the more the wind blew against him, trying to toss him off the mountain. Gravity tugged at him as well, with far greater force than the slack pull of Ryolanov; Chakotay felt like he was back in basic training again, trying to complete one of Starfleet Academy’s infamous heavy-G obstacle courses. His muscles ached from the strain. The wind blew in his face, burning his cheeks and forcing him to squint as he climbed. Don’t look down, he told himself. Keep on going.
Finally the steep incline leveled out a little bit. Chakotay pulled himself over the edge of a cliff and rose to his feet on a rocky ledge only a few meters from the top of the mountain. He blew on his fingers in a futile attempt to warm them. His breath emerged in puffs of white fog. The persistent cold sapped his strength. An awful weariness descended upon him, and it took all his energy to keep standing. What kind of stubborn fool am I? he wondered. While the rest of the crew was enjoying a tropical pleasure planet, he was facing hypothermia in a chill joyless realm of his own creation. He had to assume, though, that there was some higher purpose to his ordeal, that a deeper truth awaited him.
Refusing to look back at the way he had come, he examined the grim scene before him. Two large boulders blocked his view, with only a narrow passageway between them. Beyond the boulders, the peak of the mountain lay shrouded in shadows. For a moment, peering through the crack separating the boulders, he thought he saw something, even blacker than the shadows, moving in the darkness ahead. He strained his ears to hear above the wind, catching the faint echoes of a low growl.
He stepped toward the boulders, determined to confront the entity on the other side of the huge rocks, but it moved faster than he, reaching the passageway first. Chakotay reached instinctively for his phaser, but came up empty-handed; his weapon and technology had not come with him on this spiritual journey. The entity filled up the passage with its ebony presence. Although Chakotay searched the darkness with his eyes, he could not make out any details concerning the growling creature. The darkness swallowed its form, concealing its identity. Chakotay realized that he would not be able to truly see the entity until it was too close to escape from. He sniffed the air. A musky odor, reeking of fur and fresh blood, suffused the atmosphere. He almost gagged at the foul aroma.
Something padded toward him on four legs. For a heartbeat, he thought it might be his spirit guide. Then he saw the brilliant green eyes, the first trace of color he had witnessed in this stark and monochromatic landscape, and rows of sharp white teeth. . . .
It looked like a cross between a wolf and a grizzly, flaunting the most savage aspects of both beasts. Chakotay caught a glimpse of its massive shaggy body and a snout full of ivory fangs. Steam rose from flaring nostrils, and its hot breath hit him like the heat from a fusion reactor. Five sharp talons extended from a hairy paw that took one step closer to Chakotay. An angry growl rumbled like thunder.
Chakotay glanced back over his shoulder. There was nowhere to run; behind him, the ledge gave way to a long drop to the rocks below. Besides, he had not climbed so far, and under such arduous conditions, to flee now. Despite its alarming appearance, this beast was a part of his vision, perhaps the essential part. He had to learn what all this meant.
“Greetings,” he said. He regarded the beast with a steady gaze. “Although I cannot find my guide, I believe the spirits have brought me here. Are you their messenger?”
Green eyes glared at Chakotay as he waited for the creature’s response. Foam dripped from the beast’s jaws. Snarling, it lunged at Chakotay. He threw up his hands, but he could not overcome the beast’s speed and strength. An immense fur-covered body slammed into him like an avalanche, knocking him to the ground. Powerful jaws clamped down on his throat. Fangs tore through his flesh. Chakotay screamed in pain as he felt the beast rip out his heart!
A safety circuit activated in his akoonah. Abruptly, with no sense of transition, he found himself sitting on the floor of his darkened cabin. He experienced a moment of disorientation. Where was the beast? The mountain? The freezing wind? He clutched his throat, only to find both his flesh and his uniform neatly intact.
Of course, he thought. It was only a vision. Usually he allowed himself a more gradual return to the waking world, but the safety override in the akoonah must have halted the spirit journey at the first sign of neurological distress. And just in time, he thought. His heart was still pounding. He took a deep breath to calm himself.
His quarters were just as he had left them, his medicine tools still laid on the floor in front of him. He glanced around the dimly lit cabin, half-expecting to see the dream-beast glowering at him from a shadowy corner. “Lights,” he requested. The cabin responded instantly. Overhead lighting brightened, dispelling the shadows. Chakotay removed the akoonah from his forehead and placed it on the animal hide next to the feather and the stone. Slowly, methodically, he wrapped his medicine bundle, letting the familiar task soothe his jangled nerves even as his mind inspected the content of his disturbing vision.
What did it mean? he wondered. A hostile environment. A dangerous—and triumphant—predator. His own death beneath the hungry fangs of the beast. Was this nightmarish fantasy merely a reflection of my own unspoken anxieties, Chakotay thought, or a desperate warning from the spirits of my ancestors? His Starfleet training, and experiences among the Maquis, provided him with few clues with which to interpret his vision. Not for the first time, he wished his father were still alive and around to talk to. Kolopak had always possessed a greater understanding of the old ways than his occasionally wayward son. How would my father react to such a terrifying omen?
His commbadge beeped, startling him. “Chakotay here,” he said, rising to his feet.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Commander,” came The Doctor’s voice, “but the computer reported a scream from your quarters. Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know,” Chakotay said, recalling the beast’s feral green eyes. He could still feel the creature’s fangs tearing into his throat. “I wish I knew.”
• • •
The mess hall was not very crowded. Kes guessed that most crew members preferred to sample the exotic cuisine of the planet below. Still, Neelix was busy preparing a small buffet supper while she conversed with Tuvok. Kes wore a simple brown dress over a matching blouse and leggings; it felt good to get out of that wet swimsuit.
“There are many different sorts of telepathy,” Tuvok observed. He sat opposite Kes, a plain green salad on his plate. “The Vulcan mind-meld requires profound concentration and involves a total blending of two minds, while Betazoids practice a more casual form of empathy; they are generally better at sensing emotional states rather than extracting fac
tual information from others. Other races within the Federation can project illusions, while others exhibit various forms of clairvoyance. Some beings have claimed precognitive abilities, although this matter is open to question. Our current understanding of space-time makes genuine precognition unlikely, unless some manner of time travel is involved.”
Tuvok paused to take a sip of water, then proceeded with his lecture. “Unfortunately, the full range of Ocampa telepathic abilities remains unknown, although our encounter with Tanis suggests that your latent psychic potential is considerable. That being the case, I must assume that your experience at the Ryol harbor is the result of some form of telepathic stimuli, although I cannot readily identify the precise nature of the telepathy involved.”
Kes shuddered at the memory of those despairing voices. She remembered that awful sense of being buried alive. “But couldn’t I have just imagined it all?” she asked.
“That is possible, but not probable,” Tuvok declared. “In my experience, you are not prone to hallucinations or delusions of this sort, while your telepathic abilities are demonstrably real.”
Kes was amazed at how calmly Tuvok could discuss her strange mental powers, especially considering that she had once nearly killed him with an uncontrolled burst of psychic energy. Tom Paris had told her that all Vulcans possessed Tuvok’s extreme composure. She found it hard to imagine an entire planet filled with people like Tuvok, but she hoped she would have a chance to visit Vulcan someday, provided that Voyager could find a shortcut home. She had heard so much about the Federation from Tom and the others; she wanted to get there almost as much as the rest of the crew did.
Besides, she admitted, it was easier to fantasize about Earth and the Alpha Quadrant than to cope with whatever horror she had discovered on Ryolanov. Her own telepathic abilities frightened her sometimes because she knew so little about them. “But what am I supposed to do now?” she asked Tuvok.
