In a matter of seconds, the entire load of cargo had shifted to the opposite bulkhead. Abruptly, the deck ceased shaking, and all fell silent.
Archer drew back, suitably impressed. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not the grav-plating.” A note of concern crept into his tone. “Is there any volatile material in those containers?”
Trip shook his head. That had occurred to him as well; he’d pulled the records, but common sense had already dictated his answer, which he gave the Captain now. “We would’ve known by now.”
Archer stared at the containers, firmly held in place on the left bulkhead by some cock-eyed rendition of gravity, and considered them a moment. At last, he made a sweeping gesture at the bay with his chin. “Seal it off.” He turned to go, then paused. “Let’s hope this little ‘anomaly’ doesn’t last any longer than the others did.”
He strode off, leaving Trip to ponder the event. Tucker lingered until the deck began to rumble again, and watched with an engineer’s delight as the cargo containers went flying from the left bulkhead to the right, then snapping into place, held fast by an invisible force.
It was a miracle McFarlane hadn’t been killed.
Trip knew that the Captain was trying to follow a lead—a rumor, really—to a mining colony where there might be a Xindi. He hadn’t permitted himself to think much about it, at least not while he was on duty; but for the first time, he considered how Archer must be feeling about the situation. If Trip had been so horrified at the thought of losing McFarlane, how must the Captain react to the notion of bringing his people closer to unknown danger?
Perhaps, Trip decided, he was being selfish, grieving so for Lizzie, when there were so many other people who had suffered, were suffering, as a result of the attack on Earth.
He drew in a deep breath and tried to break free from the numbness, the thickly veiled pain, and failed.
T’Pol entered sickbay to find Phlox staring at a monitor connected to his neutron microscope; beside him on the counter sat several Petri dishes filled with active cultures.
Whatever the Doctor was looking at, it pleased him immensely, for he was indulging in one of his intense Denobulan grins.
When T’Pol stepped up beside him, Phlox’s smile widened impossibly; he turned to her and gestured with enthusiasm at the display on the screen.
“Come, look at this! The pigmentation is far more colorful than I would’ve suspected.”
While T’Pol did not share the doctor’s emotionality, she could appreciate his unalloyed enjoyment of science. She gazed at the monitor. Clearly, these were some sort of living dermal cells—hard and glistening, like the skin of Terran snakes, and aesthetically quite pleasing. Each shimmered with translucent, warm jewel-tone colors, from topaz to crimson, with hints of citrine.
“What are we looking at?” she asked. With Phlox, always researching and testing new medical alternatives, it was impossible to deduce.
“Xindi epithelial cells,” Phlox replied with satisfaction.
“I’ve been transnucleating the tissue samples harvested from the corpse they found inside the crashed probe.”
“It looks more like scales,” T’Pol remarked.
“Precisely,” Phlox agreed, nodding in his perpetually cheerful manner. “When I’m finished constructing my physiometric profile, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to have reptilian characteristics.”
She had thought Phlox had called her to sickbay in order to consult her about what he had just shown her; it was clear now that he was indulging in one of his more roundabout behaviors. He had engaged her in conversation about something else in order to broach a more difficult subject. While the tactic was no doubt useful for putting humans at ease, T’Pol preferred to get directly to the point.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked.
Phlox picked up the next Petri dish from the counter and began to prepare it for the microscope. His smile vanished; his manner grew uncharacteristically serious.
“Do you have any siblings?”
A Vulcan would consider this a personal question, but T’Pol answered it directly, even though she did not see what possible need the doctor would have for such information. “No.”
“Commander Tucker had one sister,” Phlox said softly.
“She was killed in the attack.”
T’Pol remembered the expression on the Commander’s face shortly after the event, when she had encountered him in Captain Archer’s ready room. The pain in his eyes had been raw, the anger almost feral when T’Pol had brought news of the crashed spaceship. Tucker had demanded concerning the pilot, Who the hell was he? What species?
She had thought then of Vulcan history, of the savagery; of an ancient cave painting of a warrior who had shared the same burning look in his eyes. Until that day in the ready room, T’Pol had never seen in person the emotions that led to revenge.
“I’m aware of that,” she told Phlox.
“He’s having difficulty dealing with the loss,” the doctor confided, in a tone that conveyed admirable compassion.
“That’s to be expected,” T’Pol said. She had never experienced a violent death in her immediate family; even so, a Vulcan would deal with such a tragedy with far more equanimity. Humans—perhaps because they were shorter-lived, perhaps because of their philosophy—possessed a fear of death she had never understood, which was no doubt why they grieved more for their loved ones.
“More specifically,” Phlox added, slowly inching closer to the point, “it’s affecting his sleep. I’ve been giving him sedatives, but I’d like to see him start tapering off.”
He paused, leaving T’Pol uncertain; such a matter was between a patient and his physician. She did not see how she needed to be involved. “I’m not sure I understand.”
Phlox drew a breath, then at last stated his reason in calling T’Pol to sickbay. “I believe the Commander would be a fine candidate for Vulcan neuropressure.”
The Doctor’s reluctance to state his objective immediately suddenly made complete sense; the application of neuropressure required a great degree of physical contact—and the partial disrobing of the patient. Because of its exceptionally personal nature, it was not something Vulcans were eager to do—even for each other, much less a human.
In an effort to be diplomatic, T’Pol did not refuse the request outright. “I doubt the Commander would have the patience to sit in one place long enough to get through the first posture.”
“I’m certain with your delicate guidance…” Phlox coaxed, his gaze one of pure charm. The Denobulan, T’Pol decided, would have made an excellent diplomat.
Flatly, she countered, “Delicate is not a word I associate with Mister Tucker.”
The Doctor merely continued to look at her with his frank, open gaze. Words were unnecessary; he was thinking only of Commander Tucker’s good, and giving T’Pol time to contemplate that fact.
The situation was hardly comfortable; T’Pol tried to explain her point of view, although she already sensed that hers was a losing battle. “The instruction of neuropressure is a very intimate act.”
Phlox’s expression showed that he was already well aware of the fact. “And he’s suffered a very intimate loss. He needs your help.”
T’Pol stood silently and considered this. If Commander Tucker truly needed her help, then she was ethically bound to supply it, regardless of the personal discomfort it might cause her. In fact, logic demanded she do so: Tucker was critical to their mission, therefore his well-being was of vital importance.
She let go an inaudible sigh and gazed at Phlox, who was leaning forward expectantly. “Have him come to my quarters at twenty-two hundred hours.”
She turned and headed for the door; Phlox’s voice stopped her.
“There’s one little problem,” the Doctor said, in a way that made T’Pol believe her level of discomfort was about to rise even more. She turned to face him.
Phlox’s expression was a bit wry. “Assuming that you’d agre
e to my request, I suggested all this to Commander Tucker earlier today.”
Motionless, T’Pol waited.
“He was…”—Phlox paused, searching for the right words—“…less than enthusiastic.”
Clearly, the Doctor was expecting something else from her, but T’Pol could not deduce what he was hinting at. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Perhaps if I could get him to go to your quarters tonight…say twenty-two hundred hours…you might be able to convince him of the lasting benefits of Vulcan neuropressure.”
So: she was now called upon not only to engage in an activity with Commander Tucker that required a distasteful degree of personal contact, she was also expected to cooperate in deceiving him.
For an instant, she considered lecturing Phlox about Vulcan ethics and honesty—but then the memory of her uniform, still hanging in her closet, returned to her.
She had chosen to go to the Expanse, to help the inhabitants of Earth; now was not the time to indulge in self-righteousness.
She returned Phlox’s hopeful gaze with something less than enthusiasm; he had known all along, of course, that she would not logically or ethically be able to refuse his request, despite her reluctance.
Flatly, she said, “Good night, Doctor.”
Phlox understood the response for the capitulation it was. T’Pol turned and exited, leaving him to smile brilliantly behind her.
Chapter 11
Deep beneath the surface of a planet whose name she did not know, the miner Xelia shuffled, feet and shoulders aching, through the dark, narrow tunnel toward another mindless day’s work.
Or perhaps it was night; she could not see. It had been a full ten solar revolutions, according to her homeworld’s way of reckoning time, since she had last seen the sun of this planet she merely thought of as Blue. Blue was the color of the toxic haze through which she now walked, queued up with six fellow miners; all of their faces were swaddled against the hazardous fumes, revealing only their streaming, stinging eyes. That was all Xelia knew of her peers—their eyes, for they were not allowed to speak with each other during work time, and too exhausted after to do more than eat and sleep.
Blue was the color of the poisonous trellium they mined; it caked the walls dark cobalt; it stained Xelia’s nails, colored her hair, her boil-covered skin—and, she knew, despite the pathetic protection afforded by the rag, her lungs.
By now, her brain was blue as well. She knew she was entering the last stages of trellium poisoning; she coughed blue-black sputum constantly onto her rags, and listened to her breath come and go in rasps. There were times, at night, when she bolted from sleep, struggling for air, feeling as though one of the great monsters that served as guards were sitting upon her chest.
Xelia did not fear the thought of death; it would come as a relief. But she feared dying. She had seen other miners go before her, and she knew the end was painful, with convulsions and gasping; she had heard the cries, all the more pitiful because they were incoherent. Trellium destroyed not only the mucosal lining of the throat and mouth, garbling speech, it also brought a fatal dementia. She had seen fellow workers hurl away their tools, tear away their rags, and bellow—only to be shot down by the guards.
The first sign was loss of memory—and Xelia struggled during the agonizing, tedious days trying to remember her homeworld, her life before the hellish mines.
Roa—Roja—She could remember only the beginning of her home planet’s name. She clung to it fiercely, repeating it to herself at night in a croak of a voice she could no longer recognize as her own. How had she come to be here? She had been young, a beautiful female, not yet mated. She was still young, though the mines had transformed her into a hideous, dying creature. A freighter; she had worked aboard a freighter, and there had been a distress signal from the planet of Blue…She tried, and failed, to recall those who had served with her aboard the freighter. All of them had long since perished.
Xelia filed with the other miners past twelve guards, each one her full height plus half. They stood, menacing towers, over their piteous charges, clutching large weapons that glowed in the dark cyan haze. Their race was alien to her; like her peers, they never revealed their faces, which remained covered by rebreathers; to Xelia, the rebreathers looked like great, tentacled parasites. She imagined them sucking the brains from the guards; certainly, they could not be highly intelligent to have chosen such a profession. Perhaps, she thought, they didn’t even have faces.
Or perhaps they, too, were like her, unwilling victims forced into service.
A voice, rasping and breathless, suddenly crackled through the overhead com and echoed through the long, narrow corridors.
“Emergency crews to Level Sixteen! There’s been a collapse in the secondary access shaft!”
Xelia turned with the others and began running away from the catacomb of tunnels, toward safety. As she did, one of the guards struck her shoulder with his rifle, propelling her forward faster. She cried out; the sound was animallike, unrecognizable to her own ears.
The com voice continued over the sounds of panic. “Protecting the trellium flow must take precedence over any rescue attempts!”
Miners would be left to die, Xelia knew. The lucky ones would perish almost immediately from the trauma of being crushed beneath layers of bulwark and trellium; others, knowing no action would be taken to save them, would be left to suffocate over a matter of a few hours.
Xelia envied them all. She only wished she had the courage to turn and run—not away from the disaster, but into the very heart of it.
Several meters above her on the planet surface, the foreman of the mining complex stood in his dark office, lit only by an oil lamp and two flickering monitors covered with blue soot and grime. His name was Baloran, and he, too, had not seen the sun for several years. The planet’s surface had long ago turned into a wind-blown desert, its natural sky blotted out by thick blue clouds composed of trellium particulates. If there was a name for the planet, Baloran had never learned it either; the world he and his business cohorts raped for its main resource was inconsequential. He never referred to it, only to the mining complex itself as the Base.
At the moment, Baloran was still shouting—as best his damaged lungs permitted him—into the filthy com unit that hung from the ceiling of his office.
“Production must not be delayed!” On the last syllable, his voice cracked; he let go the microphone, which automatically ascended back to the ceiling. Baloran leaned forward, hands on thighs, and coughed until he very nearly retched, then swiped an inhaler from his desk and sucked in a deep breath.
The tightness in his throat and lungs eased immediately; grateful, he drew in another breath, then scratched at the boils on his neck and jawline.
Damned nasty place to work. The trellium got into everything, despite what his superiors told him. Minor irritation, the man who’d hired him had said. You’ll get used to it.
It was all a lie, of course; it wasn’t until Baloran got to the Base that he’d seen just how toxic trellium was. Even his fingernails were stained a permanent blue now. The others had all told him to wear a rebreather, but he’d refused it. I don’t need that thing—I won’t be here all that long. Besides, I’m tough. Got good lungs.
He was too embarrassed to admit the very thought of putting a rebreather on his face made him shake with claustrophobia. He’d put in his time, then take the money—good pay it was—and get out.
Behind him, the metal door clanged open; he turned to see the head guard enter.
Baloran was no good with names. The head guard was named something like “Xathar” or “Xaran,” but Baloran gave up trying to remember and instead just avoided addressing him altogether. He hadn’t bothered to learn about the guards’ species, either; he wasn’t here to make extraterrestrial friends, just to make some money. All he knew was that they were tall bruisers, and he had no desire to mess with them.
Fortunately, they had a well-developed sense of hierarchy
, and treated Baloran with respect. Even now, the huge alien bowed slightly and said, with an officious air, “The starship’s entered orbit. They’ve asked to see you.”
Baloran set the inhaler down and smiled faintly.
“Send them our coordinates,” he said.
If he hadn’t had the scanners to tell him otherwise, Archer would have thought the foreman had given him the wrong coordinates; as the Captain maneuvered the shuttlepod down toward the planet’s surface, he had absolutely no visual of the mining complex until he was right on top of it. Swirling, murky blue clouds hid the two towers until the pod, with Archer and Reed inside, slowly descended beside them.
The towers were massive old structures, of dull, worn metal, pitted by the corrosive gases and particulate matter hurled about by the gale-force winds. Dozens of vents on the towers’ roofs and flanks constantly belched plumes of dark blue smoke, which was immediately seized and drawn upward by the violent air currents.
It was a less than welcoming sight, but Archer did not permit himself an instant’s hesitation before opening the pod hatch and stepping out into the maelstrom. Reed, his demeanor only slightly more tentative, followed.
Immediately, Archer threw up his hands to shield his eyes, and fought to steady his stance. The wind was blowing nearly sideways, pelting him with a fine grit that stung eyes and skin. The smell surprised him: he came from a world and time unused to the stench of toxic chemicals. His eyes and nose both began to run.
Despite the surprise, he got his bearings quickly enough; he had important work to do here, critical work, and every second’s hesitation was another second given the Xindi to develop the weapon that would destroy Earth. Cupping a hand over his eyes to shield them, Archer oriented himself to the towers—imminently close, yet ghostly even in this distance, due to the thick, murky haze—and began making his way toward his destination.
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