by David Mack
“She advised you to hunt small game inside our hut?” He refused to take the bait—not a smile or a laugh, not even a sour look. Just his stone-faced vigilance. She tried to step around him. He swung his spear into her path with alarming speed. She stepped back, irritated. “What’s the matter with you? All I want to do is nurse her. She must be hungry by now.”
His spear was unwavering. “Keora nursed her already.”
“Keora?” Primal urges quickened Nimur’s pulse. “Why was she nursing my baby?”
“It’s for Tahna’s protection. You know that, Nimur. You nursed Jenica’s baby boy when she Changed, remember?” There was a pleading note in Kerlo’s voice. Nimur sensed he was afraid he would have to fight her, as if she were nothing more than some mindless, wild animal that had blundered into their home. He shooed her with the spear. “Don’t try to touch her.”
It was madness. Yesterday he had loved her. They had seen the universe in each other’s eyes and made a perfect child together. Now he treated her like a sworn enemy. “Kerlo, what are you doing? I’m still me. Can’t you tell I’m the same person I was yesterday?”
He shook his head. “Your eyes are burning. It’s only a matter of time now.”
More nervous energy welled up inside her, adding to an excruciating sensation of pressure for which she had no means of release. Impelled into motion by her own anxiety, she stalked back and forth in front of Kerlo while wringing her hands. “This makes no sense! Can’t you see that? Why would we turn into monsters just when we reach the peak of our abilities? No other creature in nature does that. Do they? Name one. I can’t think of any. Not on land, or in the air, or in the sea. So why would we be any different?”
Kerlo parroted the sacred words of the Shepherds. “We are in this world but not of it.”
“How do we know that? Because someone told us so? Did any of us every try to find out the truth for ourselves? Did any of us ever think to ask?”
She lunged toward Tahna, hoping to slip past Kerlo, but he swung the spear and blocked her path again. She backed off as he sprang to his feet.
No matter where she moved, he kept the spearhead pointed at her throat. “Don’t try that again. The part of me that still loves you doesn’t want to hurt you.”
“No, you just want me to throw myself into the fire.”
“The Cleansing awaits us all.”
“Maybe I want more.” He recoiled as she said that, so she pressed on. “What if the Change isn’t something to be feared? What if we were lied to, Kerlo? What if this is all some stupid mistake? Why not let someone finish the Change, just to be sure?”
His stare narrowed, and he kept his spear on-target. “Many have tried, Nimur. We’ve all been to the Valley of the Endless. There are only three ways that we end: blood, fire, or stone.”
“Those could be statues. Crude works of art left to melt in the rain. You’ve never seen anyone die by stone. None of us have. No one for a hundred generations, if ever.”
“Something to be thankful for.”
“No, something that should make us ask why we believe whatever we’re told.” She untied the knot at the shoulder of her dress and showed a bit of her chest to Kerlo. His attention snared, she affected her most alluring tone of voice and inched closer to him. “Look past the Change, Kerlo. It’s still me. The one you loved. The one who loves you. All I want—”
She snared the shaft of the spear and tried to wrest it from his grasp. He lunged forward and twisted the weapon, lifting the back end of the shaft. It hit Nimur in the side of her face, and her vision doubled for a few seconds. She let go of the spear and fell to the ground, wailing and pressing her hands to the bloody wound. By the time she opened her eyes, Kerlo had scooped up Tahna and fled the hut. He vanished into the arms of the night as she turned to follow the sound of his footsteps.
Nimur let out a primal howl of pain and wrath as she staggered to her feet. Her whole life was being ripped from her—her future and her past, her family and friends. All her choices were being made for her now. Even so simple a privilege as mothering her infant was to be denied, all because some eldritch power had awakened inside her, some energy without a name. For this, she was expected to step over the edge of oblivion and cast herself into the flames.
She tore the decorations from the walls of her hut and flung them outside, into the darkness. Screaming and crying, she ripped apart her other dresses, all of Kerlo’s clothing, the bedsheets—anything made of fabric. What she couldn’t shred with her hands she cut apart with stone cooking knives. The bowls and jewelry she crushed underfoot. For minutes that felt like forever she was a whirlwind of destruction, laying waste to all she had ever made or owned.
When her indignation was spent, and its borrowed strength abandoned her, she crumpled to the dirt floor inside the hut, surrounded by the broken pieces of her life, and wept like a child.
There was nothing left for her now but the fire.
4
A low bump and a brief tremor reverberated through the interior of the Sagittarius as the ship set down on the planet’s surface. Theriault felt the main ladder’s rungs vibrate as she descended it to the cargo deck, which doubled as a garage for its rovers. The small, unarmed vehicles were used most often for planetside exploration. Because the Archer-class scout had only a single transporter pad, its landing parties tended to rely on the rovers for traversing short distances rather than asking the ship for site-to-site beaming. Officially, rovers were designated for moving personnel, equipment, supplies, and collected samples. Unofficially, they were also fun to drive.
Theriault stepped off the ladder to find three of the ship’s four engineers huddled around the rover they’d dubbed Vixen. It and its twin, Blitzen, had been added to the Sagittarius’s equipment loadout during its recent repairs at Earth Spacedock. They had replaced its original rovers, Roxy and Ziggy, which had been lost in action several months earlier, during a classified mission to an ancient statite situated inside the emission axis of a pulsar known as Eremar.
Noting the concerned looks on the engineers’ faces, Theriault decided a gentle inquiry was in order. “S’up, guys?”
“Just a few last-second tweaks,” said Master Chief Petty Officer Mike “Mad Man” Ilucci. The chief engineer was shorter than average for a human male, thicker in the middle than Starfleet regulations preferred, and as scruffy as a junkyard dog. He activated a sonic tool that filled the air with its oscillating sing-song whining. “Vixen needs a bit of fine-tuning.”
Crewman Torvin, the youngest member of the ship’s crew, rolled out from underneath the amphibious rover. The Tiburonian’s large, finlike ears were daubed with grime, and his olive coverall was stained with industrial chemicals. “Ventral water seals fixed, Master Chief.”
The first officer accused Ilucci with a single cocked eyebrow. “The water seals?”
The chief engineer’s face settled into a put-upon scowl as he looked around for someone else to take the blame. Torvin wisely rolled back underneath the rover. Facing Ilucci from the other side of Vixen, his thick-bearded, long-haired Denobulan hulk of a senior engineer’s mate, Petty Officer First Class Salagho Threx, held up his hands. “Don’t look at me, Master Chief.”
Behind Theriault, the rest of the landing party descended the ladder, one at a time. Science officer Hesh arrived first, followed by nurse Lieutenant Nguyen Tan Bao and Lieutenant Faro Dastin, who had joined the crew a year earlier as its tactical officer, but now served as a field scout. The men gathered behind Theriault while the chief engineer hemmed and hawed.
The XO crossed her arms. “Master Chief? What’s wrong with the rover?”
“Nothing. Well, not anymore.” He surrendered the truth. “We were doing a routine pre-mission check, and we found out the water seals weren’t as tight as they should be.”
Theriault eyed the rover. “Meaning what, exactly?”
When the chief engineer hesitated to answer, Threx spoke up. “The crew cabin would’ve flooded within twenty seconds of submersion.”
The landing party exchanged anxious looks. Ilucci was quick to add, “But we fixed it.”
Dastin grinned. “Well, okay, then. I’m just brimming with confidence now.”
“Good thing I brushed up on my CPR techniques,” Tan Bao said.
Hesh poked at the edges of the rover’s open, gull-wing doors. “You brought them aboard in parts, yes? So, would you classify this as a design problem or an assembly problem?”
Ilucci suffered the snarky remarks with fading patience. Theriault threw him a rhetorical lifeline. “Ignore them, Master Chief. Just tell me this: Is the rover good to go?”
“Yeah, it’ll get you there and back.”
Threx averted his gaze as he rolled his eyes. “As long as you don’t hit anything, get torpedoed, or break the windshield.”
Ilucci shot a deadly look at his right-hand man. “Hey, ray of sunshine: Shut up.”
Torvin scuttled back out from under the rover. “The MHD propulsors check out, Commander. Once Vixen’s in the water, she’ll be quick as lightning and quiet as space.”
“Good to know, Tor. Thanks.” The crewman’s eagerness to please never failed to amuse Theriault. Magnetohydrodynamic, or MHD, was hardly a new propulsion technology. It had been invented nearly three centuries earlier as a stealth technology for submersible naval vessels. Nonetheless, it was always a good idea to keep as low a profile as possible when venturing into uncertain situations, such as a potential first contact with an alien culture. The first officer turned to Dastin. “Do you need to brush up on the controls for aquatic operations?”
The young Trill shook his head. “No, I’m good to go.”
“Okay. Final equipment check.” Theriault faced Tan Bao. “Medical tricorder and medkit?” He nodded, so she turned toward Hesh. “Standard tricorder and sample collection vials?” Another silent confirmation. She checked her own pockets as she continued. “Everybody make sure you’ve got a communicator and a fully charged type-one phaser.” The rest of the landing party followed her example and nodded their affirmations. “All right. Dastin’s driving, and I’ve got shotgun. Let’s pile in and move out.” The others climbed inside Vixen while Theriault paused to give Ilucci a friendly pat on his arm. “Thanks for prepping our ride, Master Chief.”
Despite his best effort to hold a gruff frown, a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “For you? Anytime.” He glowered at Dastin. “Sure you want to let Mister Fabulous drive?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I saw him wreck two shuttles and a hoverbike on shore leave. The man’s a menace.”
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about.” Just then, Vixen’s engine surged to life with a vroom so loud it made Theriault and the engineers wince. Torvin, whose Tiburonian eardrums were hypersensitive, yowled in pain as he covered his ears with both hands. Through the rover’s windshield, Theriault saw Dastin laughing like a child with a new toy. Abashed, she faced Ilucci’s trademark I told you so look. “Maybe you should leave a light on for us, Master Chief. Y’know—just in case.”
“Will do.” Ilucci walked over to the control panel for the cargo deck’s ramp. Torvin and Threx moved to the other side of the deck, well out of Vixen’s path.
Theriault got inside the rover, closed the passenger-side door, and double-checked that it was securely sealed. She gave Ilucci a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture and, with the pull of a lever, opened the ramp.
A sliver of light appeared near the overhead as the ramp angled downward, and then the gap widened to reveal the golden radiance of daylight. After a few seconds, Theriault’s eyes adjusted to the brightness of natural sunlight, and she was able to appreciate the off-white sand of the beach, the viridescent waves of the sea, and a majestic blue yawn of sky on the horizon.
Ilucci windmilled his arm, signaling Dastin to move out. The field scout eased the rover into motion and steered it down the ramp onto the beach. Once they had cleared the ramp, he turned toward the crashing surf and slowed to a smooth stop. “Final systems check. Activating onboard navigation system.” He keyed some buttons on the armrest between him and Theriault. A small screen set into the dash switched on and displayed a simple map over which was superimposed a digital compass and a range-to-target readout. “Navcomp checks out.”
Theriault opened a comm channel to the Sagittarius while Dastin finished his routine review of the rover’s other basic systems. “Vixen to Sagittarius. Do you copy?”
Captain Terrell answered. “Roger, Vixen.”
“All systems are looking five-by-five. We’re ready to head for the big island.”
“Acknowledged. As soon as you dive, we’ll head back to orbit. Just give a holler when you’re ready to dust off and come home.”
“Will do, sir.”
“And Number One? Be careful out there.”
“Roger that, sir. Vixen out.” She closed the channel, checked the fastener on her seat’s safety harness, then pointed her arm seaward. “Mister Dastin, all ahead flank. Dive!”
The Trill grinned and stepped on the accelerator. “Aye-aye, Skipper!”
Vixen plunged headlong into the breaking waves and sliced through them with ease. As the sea washed over the rover’s canopy, Theriault caught a blurred glimpse of the Sagittarius, already airborne and making a steep climb back toward space. Then all she saw was an eternity of emerald ocean and deeper-green shadows as Dastin piloted them away from shore into open water, on a heading for the planet’s only populated island.
She peered down at the thriving underwater ecology that surrounded them. She was sure that Nereus II would be a marine biologist’s dream come true—but all she could think about as she stared at the endless aquatic splendor was how quickly it would kill her if the engineers had missed any of the rover’s faulty water seals during their hasty last-minute repairs.
And I call myself an optimist.
• • •
The wind was sweet with the perfumes of new blossoms, but Nimur was too bitter to savor them. All she wanted was to hold her child during the Bonding ritual, but neither Kerlo nor Ysan would permit it. Her only part in the ceremony, it seemed, was to parrot the words of the high priestess, who recited the ancient words from memory.
“As I prepare to Cleanse myself in the Eternal Fire of the Shepherds . . .”
“As I prepare to Cleanse myself in the Eternal Fire of the Shepherds,” Nimur repeated.
“I name Chimi and Tayno as my child’s Guardians, and I grant to them my sacred and irrevocable trust, in accordance with the Law of the Shepherds.”
Nimur echoed the words of the priestess, but they felt like nothing more to her than hollow sounds, noises without meaning. As soon as the oath was spoken, Kerlo handed Tahna to the young pair of Guardians. Chimi cradled the infant in her arms, and then Tayno embraced them both, adding his support. Ysan accepted from her disciple Seta a bowl of vermillion paint that had been mixed from crushed berries and fired clay. The high priestess dipped her thumb into the paint and used it to draw glyphs of consecration on the foreheads of Tahna, Chimi, and Tayno. The three of them were Bonded. No matter what protests Nimur or Kerlo might make, Tahna was no longer their child; she belonged to her Guardians now.
Ysan touched Chimi’s and Tayno’s chins and spoke to them in a soft voice. “Go now, and make your home her home. Guide her, teach her, and protect her. As the Shepherds have willed.”
“As the Shepherds have willed,” the two youths said, and then they walked away, down the trail that led back to the village.
The high priestess returned to Nimur and stood in front of her. “It’s time.”
A dozen Wardens emerged from the jungle’s shadows and formed a circle around the Well of Flames. Their arms and legs were bare, but their feet were
shod in high-wrapped sandals, and their torsos were protected by ornate armor crafted from lightweight but nearly impenetrable stone, made in ages past by methods long since forgotten. Each Warden wore a unique headdress that evoked the image of a jungle creature: majestic birds of prey, terrifying reptiles, or fearsome beasts of claw and fang. Each mask was decorated with the appropriate details of feathers, scales, or fur. But the Wardens’ true symbols were their weapons of office: the Lances of Fire. A Warden who held a Lance was protected as if by the invisible might of the Shepherds themselves and could unleash the Cleansing Fire anywhere, with only a single word.
Even though Nimur knew that beneath their ceremonial armor the Wardens were mere flesh and blood, just Tomol like her, she also knew better than to underestimate them. Only the strongest, fastest, and bravest Tomol were chosen to act as Wardens. Their commitment and loyalty were tested constantly, and a candidate who failed even a single trial of character was deemed unfit to serve as a defender of the faith and the people.
Two of the warriors flanked Nimur while Ysan and Seta met another couple who were surrendering their two tiny children to Guardians. Unable to witness another family’s sundering, Nimur turned to face the Well of Flames. The blue crucible was just over a stone’s throw away, but even at that distance its heat was intense enough to sting her face.
All paths lead to the fire. It was an old homily, one that priestesses had told to young Tomol since time immemorial. This is the way of all flesh.
A lifetime of indoctrination told her this was the natural order of life. She didn’t want to shame herself, or Kerlo, or Tahna—but was disgrace truly worse than death? By what measure? Was that just a lie someone made up to persuade us to go quietly to our doom? She refused to accept that. All her life she had been taught that it was not just the fate of all Tomol to be Cleansed, it was their sacred duty, for the sake of all who lived, and all who would come after. But if the rationale was a lie, did it matter how many times it had been told to her? How could simple repetition transform a lie into the truth? And why was it forbidden even to ask the question? How could the priestesses know the answer to a question that was never asked?
