“Holodecks aren’t my cup of tea,” said Dolores, shaking her medium-length brown hair. “I prefer real thrills and real fresh air. Please don’t tell the ship’s doctor, but I suffer from a bit of claustrophobia. I’m always glad to get out of these tin cans and back to solid ground, even if it’s a Class-H planetoid.”
“A Class-H planetoid?” asked Geordi, only half-listening.
“You’re a million light-years from here, Commander,” said the woman with bemusement. “Usually when I wear this dress, I have my date’s undivided attention.”
“I’m sorry, really,” he stammered. “I have to admit that I’m concerned about this detour we’re taking, because I have a good friend who lives out there. I’ll be happier than anyone when we find out it’s nothing.”
She nodded sympathetically. “By the worry lines on your face, I think it must be a lady friend.”
“No, Leah is a ... a fellow engineer.” Geordi lowered his head and plowed down the corridor, embarrassed by the direction of the conversation. Dolores Linton seemed to be one of those people who said anything she felt like saying. Maybe that was a luxury enjoyed by those who flitted from one place to another, disappearing in the wilds for weeks at a time.
“This way to the turbolift,” he said, motioning to the color encoded lines which ran the length of the corridor.
[62] “Oh, there’s a turbolift down there?” remarked Dolores in amazement. “I didn’t know. I get so lost on ships. When you caught me today, I was just riding around on the lift, seeing how many decks there were. I’ve been on a lot of space stations smaller than this vessel. Seriously, Commander, if you get any free time at all, I’d love a tour of the Enterprise. Might as well, if I’m going to spend some time on shoreleave.”
“We’ll see,” he answered with a half-smile. “And call me Geordi.”
“You had to go and smash up the Cultural Affairs Center,” said a chiding voice, followed by tongue clicking. “You’re going to get a nasty bill.”
“Aarghh,” murmured the Klingon as he shuddered awake and stared at a brown ceiling carved with thousands of chit marks. With a grunt, Maltz swung his legs over the edge of the bed and finally succeeded in sitting up. “I thought I was dead.”
“You sound disappointed,” said Consul Bekra, standing outside a holding cell in an earthen room with a low ceiling and no windows. A shimmering force-field guarded the cell door.
“I am,” grumbled Maltz.
“Come on, it’s not that bad.” The Capellan chuckled with amusement. “You’ll be glad to know, none of our guests were seriously injured, and I think they relished the opportunity to tangle with a Klingon. At least you lived up to your advance billing. Not everything in life does.”
“I’m gratified the tourists were happy,” rasped the old Klingon. “How long do I have to stay in here?”
“You know how it works—you have to see the magistrate.” Bekra stepped away from the wall and walked toward the door. “I’ll do what I can to move the process along.”
“Thanks.”
[63] “Hey! Hey, out there!” The Capellan stood by the door, trying to attract someone’s attention to let him out. He finally gave up and turned back to Maltz. “Is it true you were once a bounty hunter?”
“Yes,” muttered the Klingon. “I thought somebody would kill me back then, too. But nobody ever did.”
The outer door suddenly opened, allowing more light and a cacophony of voices to flood into the quiet holding cell. It sounded as if a full-scale melee was taking place in the waiting room. Maltz tried to ignore it and concentrate on his thumping headache, but the voices were too loud and insistent. A Tellarite constable dressed in a red-and-white plaid uniform ducked into the room, looking as if he were trying to escape from the racket.
“What is going on out there?” asked Bekra.
“Two people have landed in a damaged shuttlecraft,” answered the constable. “They’re claiming that some kind of strange energy wave destroyed Seran and is coming after us.”
“An energy wave destroyed a whole planet?” asked Bekra doubtfully. “Did they say what it was?”
The Tellarite shrugged. “Something about a green fire consuming the planet, turning it into sludge.”
Maltz gasped and nearly fell out of his bed. “What!” he shouted, rushing the door. “What did they say exactly?” In his enthusiasm, he got too close to the door, and the force-field shocked him, hurling him to the floor.
“Careful there!” called the guard angrily. “You just sit tight until the magistrate gets here.”
“I’ve got to see those people!” shouted Maltz desperately. He staggered to his feet, careful not to trip the force-field again. “Please, Officer, you’ve got to let me see them.”
“You’re in enough trouble already,” scolded Bekra. “Would it help if I talked to them?”
The constable shrugged. “Well, they are asking to speak to important people, but we don’t know what to tell them. They claim [64] we haven’t got any time, that we have to evacuate the planet.” He snorted a laugh. “As if we could.”
“Please!” roared the Klingon. “I know what they’re talking about. Let me see them!”
With a scowl, the angry guard pushed Bekra out the door and slammed it shut behind him. Maltz could still hear muffled voices, but he couldn’t hear any specifics. He howled like a wounded animal and dropped to his knees, beating his fists against his craggy skull.
“Listen to me!” he moaned. “I knew someone would use the device again ... I know what it is!”
But no one was listening.
six
“Listen! Listen to me, please!” begged Leah Brahms, pushing up the sleeves on her jumpsuit and leaning over the amber desk to stare at an enormous Tellarite. She still couldn’t believe this quaint hovel was the regional police station. “You’ve got to get ready to evacuate,” she told them. “How many space vehicles have you got?”
The chief Tellarite raised his beefy hands and smiled condescendingly at her. According to a plate on his desk, he was a proctor.
“Now you listen for a second ... what did you say your name was?”
“Dr. Leah Brahms,” she answered impatiently for the nineteenth time. “I’m in the Science Service, I was once in the Theoretical Propulsion Group, I run the lab on Outpost Seran-T-One.” With a lump in her throat, she corrected herself. “I mean, I ran it before it was totally destroyed about fourteen hours ago.”
“That’s what we’re trying to ascertain,” said the proctor importantly as he shuffled papers and motioned to his confederates. “We’ve got to discover the facts in the matter. So far, the only fact [66] we know is that the two of you landed in a shuttlecraft, which isn’t all that unusual.”
Leah turned with exasperation to her colleague, Paldor, but the Tellarite was in shock. He’d had no idea that Hakon was such a sleepy backwater of a place, where no one would pay any attention to their anguished cries of warning. She could see from the despair on his face that he realized all of these people were going to die, and no doubt the two of them as well.
“Paldor,” she said, trying to wake him from his reverie. “Tell them it’s true! That a destructive wave is coming.”
“Huh?” he said, blinking at her like a person coming out of a trance. “All they have are farms and a small village. They haven’t got any labs here.”
“A subspace radio,” she told the officer at the desk. “There’s got to be some way for you to contact other planets. Try contacting Seran, where we came from.” She snapped her fingers. “Or better yet, let us try to contact Starfleet! We’ve got to warn the rest of the Federation.”
Several of the smug constables chuckled at her earnestness. “We don’t have any reason to contact other planets from this station,” said the proctor slowly, as if talking to a child. “The spaceport probably has that capability. So do the ships in orbit.”
“The spaceport!” exclaimed Leah, clinging to any semblance of advanced civilization
in this provincial hamlet. “Yes, how can we get there?”
“It’s about forty kilometers on the outskirts of town,” explained the constable, pointing out the window at a row of mudflats.
“They can’t help you,” said a cultured voice coming from behind Leah. She whirled around to see an elegantly dressed Capellan; he shook his lofty turban sadly. “The spaceport is nothing but an automated system to handle our freighter and passenger traffic, which isn’t much.”
“Who are you?” asked Brahms, hoping he was the mayor or someone of enough rank to get things done.
[67] “Capellan Trade Consul Bekra, at your service,” he answered with a smart bow.
She gripped his turquoise collar, which brought a grimace of distaste to his dignified face. “Listen, Bekra, you’ve got to believe me—everyone on this planet is going to die! Do you understand me?”
“Do you have proof of this?” he asked gravely.
From the pocket of her jumpsuit, Leah removed an isolinear chip, which she waved in his face. “I’ve got this and another copy back in our shuttlecraft. But this is raw data—sensor readings, vid-logs, and recollections—you’d have to spend some time analyzing it. And you don’t have any time.”
“Let me see that!” ordered the constable, reaching across his desk and snatching the isolinear chip from her fingers. “You say this contains evidence?”
“Not evidence ... data!” The human rolled her eyes in exasperation. “No crime’s been committed—this is more like a natural disaster, I think. Do you have someone who can analyze our data?”
“We’ve got our medical examiner and the professors at the agricultural college,” said the constable proudly. “First thing in the morning, we’ll take this to them and—”
“No, no!” shouted Leah, balling her hands into fists and shaking them at the dense constable. “You’re not listening to me! You won’t be here ‘first thing in the morning.’ This entire planet will be pulverized into something ... some kind of new life-form. You, your wife, your kids, your friends—”
“Now, you listen to me!” roared the proctor, jumping to his feet and shaking a beefy fist at her. “Around here, we don’t tolerate people creating a public disturbance, and you’re doing just that. We’re a simple people—we don’t look kindly on doomsday cults. We’ve got a sensor warning system in place from the war, and it hasn’t put out so much as a peep.”
“This is pointless,” said Paldor, shaking his head miserably. “You’re all doomed.”
[68] “That’s quite enough of that!” bellowed the belligerent chief. As his fellows moved from behind the counter and surrounded them with a bulky phalanx, the proctor pointed toward the door. “Now get out of here, both of you. We’ve got your data, and we’ll study it. And don’t leave town.”
“Come along,” said the Capellan, putting a protective arm around Leah Brahms. She was so disillusioned—and fearful—that she let the consul lead her out of the building into the street, where the cheery sunshine did seem to belie their dire warnings. The weather had been just as beautiful on Seran seconds before the ungodly fire scourged everything, she recalled. How much time did they have? Hours? Seconds?
Paldor stumbled after Leah and bumped into her. “I’m sorry, Doctor. You were right—we should have kept running.”
She turned again to the popinjay in his conical turban. “Have you got a ship, some way we can contact the Federation? Or at the very least some equipment, so we can repair our shuttlecraft?”
“Speaking of which, I should get back to the shuttlecraft,” said Paldor, rousting himself from his stupor. “I’ll keep our sensors running.”
“Stay in contact via combadge,” ordered Brahms, “and be ready to beam me back.” Intellectually, she knew she had to fight through the locals’ ignorance and make them understand, but part of her just wanted to get the hell out of there. Most of her reasons to live were gone, but the urge to save herself was still amazingly strong. Some internal motor wouldn’t let her stand still and have that nightmarish wave strip her flesh off her bones.
“You’re in charge, Doctor,” Paldor gave her a grave bow, acknowledging that he had been wrong. He was also assigning his life to her hands, a fact which weighed heavily on her.
“I’ll do what I can,” she promised. “Go on.”
With a nod, the Tellarite scurried off, glancing suspiciously around him. And well he might, because it looked as if the [69] constables had been watching them from the station. Two of them took off in pursuit of Paldor, rushing right by Leah and the Capellan consul.
“Your ship,” she told the Capellan. “We’ve got to contact somebody.”
“All I’ve got is a shuttlecraft, too,” he answered apologetically. “It doesn’t even have warp drive, I’m afraid, but there is a subspace relay to my homeworld.”
“Will they believe me?”
“Even if they do, what can they do to help?” asked Bekra rhetorically. “They’re two thousand light-years away. You know, this planet does have sensors. If there was anything—”
“It’s not like anything we’ve seen before,” cut in Leah, shaking her head. “I’ve got to make somebody believe.”
The Capellan grimaced. “Well, there is somebody who might be inclined to believe you, but he couldn’t do much to help you either.”
“Why is that?” she asked impatiently. “Who is this person?”
“Another consul. A Klingon. Unfortunately, he’s a prisoner in the station we just left.”
She blinked at the stranger. “Why should he believe me? Is he a scientist?”
“No, but he’s old, and he’s seen many things in his life. He thinks he’s seen this energy wave of yours—I’ve heard him talking about it.” The diplomat shrugged. “Then again, he may be insane.”
“If he’s seen what I saw, he has every right to be insane.” Leah shuddered and looked back at the station, wondering if anything she could do on Hakon would make any difference. Evacuating entire planets on the spur of the moment was not going to work, not unless she had the whole Federation behind her. To get support, she needed more information. If there was any chance to find out more about that awesome force, she had to take it.
“Can we see this Klingon?” she asked.
[70] Bekra sighed, as if realizing he was getting himself deeper into a quagmire. “You’d better not be getting me into trouble. I have to work with these people.”
“Believe me, by tomorrow, that will be the least of your worries.” Leah fixed him with a doleful stare.
The Capellan took her elbow and guided her back toward the station. “I wish I weren’t starting to believe you, because you’re frightening me.”
“So far you’re the only one.” Leah Brahms made a concerted effort to soften her expression as they reentered the two-story police station. The half-dozen Tellarite officers in the waiting room regarded them warily as they approached the desk, and the big proctor snorted and tugged on his bristling orange beard.
“I thought I told you to leave?” he said gruffly.
“Our visitor ... she thinks she may know Consul Maltz,” answered Bekra quickly.
The big Tellarite smiled and glanced at his fellows. “She thinks she knows Maltz? Why does that not surprise me?”
“Listen,” said Bekra, leaning across the desk and lowering his voice, “when the magistrate gets here, I’ll make it easy on everyone by vouching for Maltz and paying any fines.”
“Oh, he’s not getting out of here so easy,” said the proctor with satisfaction. “He attacked three constables and tore up a peaceful gathering. I’ve got a dozen witnesses who say it was his fault, and we’d like to teach that big oaf a lesson.”
“I doubt if he even knew he was fighting three constables,” answered the Capellan. “Can’t you let her see him for a moment? I’ll go with her.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’d be willing to take Maltz away from here,” answered Leah forcefully. “Take him clear off the
planet, out of your hands.”
The Tellarite considered that for a moment, then pointed a chubby finger at her. “You’d better not get him riled up.” He [71] motioned to one of his underlings. “Let them in. Ten minutes, no more.”
“Yes, Sir.” A constable motioned to them, and Leah and Bekra dutifully followed. He opened a door, and they entered a room that seemed even more clammy and oppressive than the waiting room, due to its windowless, earthen walls. It was unusually cool in here, too, and Leah shivered and hugged her arms. The four small cells were all empty, except for the one on the end, wherein stood a tall, wild-eyed, bushy-haired Klingon, glaring at them.
He was grizzled and old, but he also looked defiant and vibrantly alive, like a wild animal kept in a zoo. The Klingon cautiously approached the door, shimmering with a force-field barrier, as Leah Brahms warily approached him.
“Did you see it?” he rasped.
“What is it?” she asked dubiously. “Describe it.”
His big hands gestured in the air and his eyes blazed with the remembrance of a tale he had been told, or perhaps a tape he had seen. “It sweeps across the land like a burning curtain, ripping up everything. But it leaves new life—strange life—growing in its place. There are geysers, a terrible wind, mountains shooting up, awful things ... growing in the muck.”
“Yes! Yes! What is it?” she gasped. At last she would know that nameless force that killed her husband and colleagues.
The Klingon glanced suspiciously at the Capellan, who was leaning against the wall near the door. “I should not tell you. Your own government considers it top secret.”
Leah gaped at him. “Are you telling me that we invented this thing? That it’s artificial?”
“Is it a weapon?” asked Bekra, suddenly interested.
“It did not start out that way,” the Klingon answered enigmatically. “You say, they set it off on Seran?”
“Nobody set it off ... I don’t think.” Leah shook her head, unable to believe this explanation. “What you described sounds [72] right, but this was an energy wave—moving through space. It hit Seran and all of her moons, and it’s coming right this way, expanding as it goes.”
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book One Page 7
