Seekers: Second Nature

by David Mack

  “Fine by me.” Moving with caution so as not to upset the Tomol, Theriault stood and dusted off her jumpsuit. As she got up, the rest of the landing party followed her lead. Once they had regained their feet, Ysan signaled her Wardens to stand aside and let the landing party take back their tools—minus the vaporized communicator. Theriault and the others made quick work of slinging their tricorders over their shoulders and tucking their phasers and communicators back into the custom-fitted pockets on their jumpsuits.

  Theriault made sure the Tomol could hear the orders she gave the landing party, so no one would have reason to think she was hiding anything. “Hesh, run a scan and try to get a lock on the Klingons. Make sure they haven’t moved since we got captured.” As the Arkenite scientist worked, Theriault turned to explain the situation to Ysan. “The devices with straps are used for finding people and things, and for studying things. My friend Hesh is going to use his to help us lead you to your friend.”

  “I understand.” Ysan nodded to her Wardens, who fell in behind her. “You and your friends will stay in front of us. I strongly recommend none of you draw your weapons without good reason—or else my Wardens will teach you new kinds of pain.”

  “Noted.” Theriault signaled the landing party to move out. As soon as her back was to the Tomol, she vented her frustration and anxiety with a roll of her eyes.

  Something tells me this ain’t the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  11

  “You need to let me go.”

  Nimur’s warning went unheeded. The Klingons were gathered around a rock they had heated with beams from their handheld weapons, and they were feasting on the raw flesh of small rodents they had captured with simple snares set inside the caves. It made no sense to Nimur that, as much as the Klingons enjoyed the stone’s warmth, they wouldn’t use the red-hot boulder to cook their food. It was a peculiar choice, but one she could accept—except that they refused to use it to cook the skinned rodent carcass they had tossed to her.

  She crouched in a nook of the cave tunnel, secured in place by a chain attached to her by a ring of metal that had closed as if by magic once its ends touched each other. The chain was anchored to the floor by a ring on a metal rod that she guessed the Klingons must have put there, because she had never heard of such a thing being in the caves—not from any of the priestesses or disciples she had ever known. Being tethered was an insult to her pride, an indignity she wouldn’t inflict upon an animal, much less on a fellow thinking creature.

  Tobar and his men joked in their guttural native tongue, and then he sent two of them to relieve the pair guarding the caves’ entrance. The man left behind with Tobar was not like the others. He was slimmer and quieter, and his forehead was smooth rather than ridged. His cohorts called him Quch’Ha. Only Tobar showed him the courtesy of calling him by his name, Tormog. Nimur had no idea why Tormog didn’t look like the other Klingons, even though he spoke their language, wore their clothes, and ate their food—but she had seen enough teasing by cruel children to understand what defined someone as the prey of bullies. Tormog was a victim.

  Hoping to play on some reservoir of sympathy he might harbor in secret, Nimur waited until Tobar stepped away to relieve himself in a nearby empty cave nook, and then she reached out to Tormog with a desperate whisper. “Please, you must set me free.”

  The Quch’Ha sneered at her request. “You must be kidding.”

  “Please. Release me, or something terrible will happen.”

  Tormog chuckled. “Wrong. Something terrible will happen if I let you go. Tobar will cut off my head, hollow out my skull, and tell his men to use it for a chamber pot.”

  On the far side of the glowing boulder, she heard her baby’s cry of hunger and fear. “I’m begging you, Tormog. Let me and my baby go. All I want is to reach a distant island and live out my life. It’s not so much to ask.”

  He spit on her. “Don’t ever use my name again, you filthy Ha’DIbaH.” Exuding contempt, he turned and walked back to the rock to bask in its ruddy glow.

  Shame and fury burned inside Nimur, and the heat of rage overwhelmed her senses. Close at hand, she felt the life-forces of the six Klingons. Each was distinctive in some way, but all six felt similar to this new sense that had awakened inside Nimur’s consciousness.

  Other energies swirled around them. Invisible threads of connection and influence were woven into the fabric of the universe, and if Nimur attuned her mind to the texture of those threads—to their peculiar vibrations, their idiosyncratic frequencies—she could tug on them. Some were slack, awaiting a motive force; others were taut and resisted her desires. But the hotter the fires inside her mind blazed, the more of these threads she felt surrender to her will.

  Tobar returned and noted the uneaten rodent carcass at Nimur’s feet. “Not hungry?”

  “Let me go,” Nimur demanded. “I won’t ask you again.”

  “Good, because I’m bored of telling you ‘no.’ Now shut up and let us rest.”

  The Klingon commander sat down on the hard ground, propped himself against the cave wall with his legs crossed in front of himself, shut his eyes, and went to sleep as if he had not a single care in the waking world.

  Staring at him, Nimur felt her hatred flare until it blazed like the fire in the Pit, hot enough to Cleanse one and all, a flame bright enough to burn away a world of flesh and leave only the fury it had spawned.

  It would be only a matter of time now until she was free, and then Tobar and his men would pay for their ­arrogance—as would Ysan, the Wardens, and all the rest.

  At last, Nimur understood why the Changed had always been feared, and why since the time of the Arrival they had been condemned to the Well of Flames for Cleansing. She realized what she would become when the Change was over.

  She was being reborn—as the fire. And when that fateful hour came around at last, Nimur vowed, all those who had wronged her would burn.

  • • •

  The only thing worse than marching through a sweltering, overgrown jungle, Theriault decided, was doing so with a deadly weapon aimed at one’s back. She was near the front of the single-file line, directly behind Dastin, who walked point. An armed Warden walked between her and Tan Bao, who was followed by Hesh. Another Warden followed the Arkenite, and behind him were Ysan, Seta, and four more Wardens.

  Theriault palmed the perspiration from her forehead and pushed sweaty locks of her red hair off her face. She stole a look at the sky. The number of visible stars had decreased, and the heavens betrayed the first hints of blue in the blackness. Dawn was close.

  Ahead of her, Dastin slowed, so she did the same. The terrain looked familiar. Noting the uphill grade on which they stood, Theriault surmised they had begun climbing the hill toward the cave entrance. Her morbid curiosity compelled her to wonder what would happen when the Tomol confronted the Klingons; her desire for self-­preservation didn’t want to find out.

  Hesh called out to her, his voice strained by the struggle between the need to whisper and the desire to shout. “Commander? You should see this.”

  The procession stopped as Theriault turned to look back. Hesh tried to move forward with his tricorder clenched in both hands, but a Warden blocked his way with his lance. The pale, diminutive Arkenite tried to push past the obstacle, but the Warden stood firm. Theriault shot an exasperated look at Ysan, who gestured quick commands to the Wardens. The one who blocked Hesh raised his lance and motioned for Theriault to swap places with Tan Bao. She failed to see the logic in the arbitrary enforcement of the single-file formation, but as a guest on the Tomol’s island she didn’t think it was her place to argue with their rules.

  Tan Bao and Theriault passed each other with sidelong looks, and then she was next to Hesh. She felt the Tomol’s stares upon them. “This better be good, Hesh.”

  “I’ve isolated a peculiar disparity in the biochemistry of the Tomol
and the other animal life-forms we’ve detected on this planet, both at the landing site and here on this island.”

  He seemed rather excited about what sounded to Theriault like a rather dry discovery. “And you think this ‘disparity’ is significant because . . . ?”

  “Because if my scans of the Tomol’s mitochondria, and my comparative analyses of those mitochondria to those of other fauna on this planet, are both accurate, my findings suggest the Tomol do not share a common ancestor with any extant species on Nereus Two. I concede that without a thorough xenoarcheological study of the planetary biosphere it’s impossible to rule out any connection to a native precursor life-form, but I’m reasonably certain the Tomol are not an indigenous species on this world.”

  It was bigger news than Theriault had expected. “Whoa, slow down. Are you sure?”

  “As certain as I can be, pending a more detailed and controlled study.”

  She lowered her voice and hoped the Tomol hadn’t already overheard them. “If they aren’t from here, where did they come from?”

  Hesh shrugged. “I have no idea, sir. Their genetic profile doesn’t match any species previously encountered by the Federation.”

  “Could they be living here as refugees? Or maybe as prisoners?”

  The science officer shook his head. “I have insufficient data to make such a conclusion.”

  Nothing about Hesh’s revelation seemed immediately pertinent to the situation with the Klingons or the missing Tomol woman, but the mere possibility that the Tomol had come to this world from another sparked Theriault’s curiosity. “Hesh, listen carefully. Set your tricorder to transfer all its stored readings to the ship in an emergency burst transmission, but do it quietly. I’ll try to hail the ship, but in case we can’t, I want to make sure the Sagittarius has this data.”

  “Understood, Commander. I’ll start the transfer now.”

  She walked past Hesh, heading back toward Ysan. As she’d hoped, all eyes were on her, and no one paid any attention to Hesh while he futzed and fiddled with his tricorder. Theriault stopped when another Warden pressed the business end of his pole-arm to her chest. She leaned around him to make eye contact with Ysan. “I want to tell you something.”

  The priestess waved the Warden away from Theriault. “Speak.”

  “I need to let the crew of my ship know my friends and I are all right. I plan to speak to them using my friend Hesh’s talk-box. Will you permit it?”

  Now the collective focus was on Ysan, awaiting her judgment. “I will permit it.”

  “Thank you.” Theriault walked back to Hesh and held out her open hand, which he filled with his communicator. A flick of her wrist opened its grille, and she adjusted the device to an encrypted ship-to-shore setting. “Theriault to Sagittarius. Do you read me?”

  She felt tremendous relief at the sound of the captain’s voice. “Go ahead, Commander.”

  “Sir, we’ve made contact with the local residents on the big island.”

  Terrell sighed in disappointment. “And how’s that going?”

  She noted the weapons pointed at her. “About as well as these things usually do.”

  “Wonderful. Any sign of our neighbors?”

  Neighbors was Terrell and Theriault’s previously agreed-upon euphemism for the Klingons. “Affirmative. In fact, we’re on our way to an unscheduled powwow.”

  He sounded understandably concerned. “That wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  “Mine either, sir. But it’s not really up to us.” She turned away and cupped her hand over her mouth and the communicator. “Hesh is sending up his tricorder data. It seems to imply the natives are anything but, if you take my meaning. Do me a favor and have Doctor Babitz give it a look. I think it might explain what our neighbors are doing here.”

  “Understood. We’ll let you know what we find. Anything else?”

  “Negative. Our hosts look anxious to get moving. I’d better go.”

  “Acknowledged. Keep your head down, Number One. Sagittarius out.”

  A light on the communicator switched off, indicating the channel had closed. Theriault flipped the grille shut and lobbed the communicator back to Hesh, who caught it—after a second of clumsy half-fumbles—and tucked it back onto his belt. Theriault moved forward, signaled Tan Bao to fall back, and resumed her place in the line behind Dastin. “Okay, Lieutenant, let’s go. I want to meet the Klingons while we still have the cover of darkness.”

  “Aye, sir.” Dastin resumed his steady, careful march through the jungle, leading the procession uphill, through tangled walls of flowering vines and hip-deep fronds, to what Theriault feared was now an unavoidable confrontation with the Klingons.

  When her pace slowed for a few moments, Theriault felt the jab of a Warden’s lance prod her forward. That does it, she decided. If I live through this, I’m gonna let the captain lead all the damned landing parties he wants. Why should I get to have all the fun?

  • • •

  Cold, hard edges bit into Nimur’s flesh as she strained against the bonds that lashed her to the stone floor of the cave. The circle of metal around her wrist looked solid, and compared to her flesh it felt unbreakable—but she knew better. She was learning to see things in new ways. There were spaces in everything, in everyone. The entire world was more emptiness than form, more void than presence. There was no difference between solids, liquids, and air—they were just degrees of being, octaves on a scale, and only a fool would be blind to that truth.

  Even the Klingons, with their ugly laughter and foul odors, were more illusion than reality, from Nimur’s point of view. To her eyes they looked like flesh, blood, and bone, but to her mind they were wild energies harnessed into temporary shapes, bundles of earth and water, fire and air, all yoked together with an illusion of will, a cruel joke of consciousness.

  They were nothing to her. Mere insects. Vermin. A pestilence to be stamped out.

  Clarity returned suddenly. The heat of the Change is making me mad, Nimur realized. Each bout of delusion lasted longer than the one before, and filled her with ever-greater intensities of hatred and power. More of her mind was succumbing to its effects with each turn, leaving only one small part of her untouched, unsullied by its irrational fury and primitive cruelty. She feared her next descent into that emotional inferno would be her last.

  Tahna’s cry split the pre-dawn silence and echoed through the caves. Tobar and his men groaned and cursed. Exhaustion slurred their epithets and left the Klingons blinking through the gray half-light toward the swaddled infant, who lay beside the boulder that once had given off such great heat but now stood cold and dark. Kergol rolled over and threw a stone at the wailing baby. “Shut up, you mewling taHqeq!”

  Nimur screamed back, “Stop it! She needs to be changed! Let me clean her.”

  Her protest roused the sleeping Klingons, who sat up to face her. Tobar scratched the fur that ringed his mouth and covered his chin. He asked Tormog, “What is she screeching about?”

  Tormog winced as he massaged his own neck. “She wants to tend to her child.”

  Kergol grimaced at the shrieking newborn. “Why did we let her bring it here? It’s going to draw predators—or worse, scavengers.” He growled in disgust. “We should just kill it and bury it in the jungle.”

  “No!” Nimur lunged toward the Klingons, only to have her chains stop her in mid-step. “Don’t you touch her! She’s mine! Do you hear me? Mine!”

  Tobar groaned, then waved his hand. “Fine. I hate that noise. Get rid of it.”

  The commander lay down, perhaps expecting to go back to sleep, as Kergol lumbered toward the crying baby. Tormog leaped to his feet, blocked the lieutenant’s path, and seized the larger Klingon by his arms. “No! We can use the child to keep her under control!”

  Kergol swatted his way free of Tormog’s grip and shoved him out of his path. “I have
other ways of keeping novpu’ in line. Quieter ways that’ll let us get some sleep while we wait for the Voh’tahk to pick us up and take us home.” He stomped over to Tahna, seemingly oblivious of Nimur’s anguished cries for mercy or her furious curses of damnation. The brawny Klingon picked up Tahna with one hand, and drew his dagger with the other.

  Then Nimur’s world turned white with rage and crimson with death.

  For the sake of her child, she let go of the last gentle part of herself and finished her transformation into the monster that the Change had always meant for her to become.

  The metal that bound her wrists and ankles broke apart at her mental command; it was easy—all she had to do was imagine all the tiny parts of what made it exist flying apart and never returning, and then the metal was gone.

  Taking apart the Klingons wasn’t quite so simple—something about their life-force made them more ­coherent—but she didn’t mind. If anything, she enjoyed the challenge. Their bodies, which had seemed so formidable to her only hours earlier, now seemed so fragile. She could pummel them with her thoughts, cast them away like stones into a pond, tear their heads from their necks with the same ease she’d once plucked berries from the bushes on the southern hills.

  The two who had been guarding the caves’ entrance came running at the sounds of battle. Neither hesitated to train his weapon on Nimur, who reacted twice as quickly. She pictured giant invisible fists clamping shut around the two soldiers, and the Klingons’ bones broke like dried twigs. In all her life, Nimur had never heard sweeter music than the sound of a Klingon finally becoming acquainted with pure terror. They screamed in pain; she laughed with glee.

  It was ecstasy to her. She and the cave walls both were splattered with the Klingons’ dark magenta viscera, and it felt good. It was right and just and so utterly satisfying that Nimur could not believe she had ever hesitated to kill. She thought of all the creatures whose lives she had ever spared and felt her heart chill with regret. Then she sensed a single Klingon life-force retreating deeper into the caves, fleeing alone into the darkness deep underground.