Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  Coris lay awake for a long time, listening to the steady, sonorous sound of Harry’s breathing. Her mind was awash with thoughts and sensations, swirling from the stimuli of this remarkable day.

  She had fully expected the man in the gold and black uniform to beat her for having tried to steal his boots. When instead he had brought her to his shelter, she assumed she would be raped first.

  When she was treated with decency and courtesy, she hardly knew how to respond, and was suspicious of the motives of these people, these Voyagers. She didn’t speak for fear of setting them off, sure they were simply trying to catch her unawares. In this part of space, no one befriended a powerless girl unless they expected something in return.

  It was only after listening to Harry’s story, which was so suffused with love and compassion, that she began, somewhat tentatively, to believe that these people were different, that they were as good and decent as they seemed. It was a concept that her mind all but refused to accept, but it was so provocative, so enticing, that she couldn’t resist it.

  Of course, it could still turn out that they wanted to use her in some fashion, and that would be no surprise and no disappointment. It was what she expected. If if turned out otherwise, that would be the shock. She would simply bide her time and see which it was to be.

  Finally, after some hours, she fell into a fitful sleep, and dreamed of her grandmother, the only person who had ever shown her love.

  “We must create a reasonably accurate map of the entire stockade,” said Tuvok to the group that assembled within one of the shelters the next morning. The day had dawned overcast and raw, with a chill breeze that held the hint of rain. B’Elanna felt the cold in her bones, and focused on what Tuvok was saying in order to take her mind off the nippy weather. The group had gathered to discuss the next step in their survival: escape.

  It was a daunting task. The wall surrounding the camp looked unassailable. The guards possessed sophisticated and lethal weapons. They were surrounded on all sides by thick forest and had no idea how far they were from civilization, if any—the prisoner-of-war camp might be the only habitation on the planet. And they still had no clue as to the whereabouts of Captain Janeway or Voyager and the rest of the crew.

  But one step at a time. They would map the stockade, looking at details of terrain, geological elements, location of guard posts, and anything else that might be useful as they made their plans.

  B’Elanna found herself with Chakotay and Brad Harrison, heading for the corner of the stockade they had designated the southwest. This was territory no one had ventured into yet, a rolling, undulating part of the meadow, teeming with ragged prisoners. B’Elanna felt many curious eyes on them as they made their way along the rough road they had dubbed Main Street, which ran the length of the stockade, perpendicular to Broadway. She was aware that her group was better dressed and better fed than anyone in the prison camp, and that they would be objects of both envy and resentment.

  “How about it, B’Elanna?” queried Chakotay. “Are you going to tell us your story tonight?”

  B’Elanna felt her cheeks flush. “I’m not much of a talker. Better pick someone else.”

  “I’ve never known you to be at a loss for words,” retorted Chakotay, and she shot him a quick glance, seeing that his lips were turned up in a characteristic grin. “We’ve heard the tale of two men—time for a woman’s story.”

  “You might hear some things that would shock you,” she said wryly, and his grin became wider. “I’d be interested in hearing just what those might be,” he shot back. “I bared my soul pretty completely, and Harry was painfully honest. It wouldn’t do for you to be anything less than forthcoming.”

  B’Elanna declined to respond. If she didn’t commit, maybe he’d choose someone else tonight. But she didn’t have time to think beyond that, because they became aware of a shouted tumult ahead of them. A cluster of prisoners off the road to their right was gathered around something, or someone, they couldn’t see. B’Elanna thought this was in their favor; if the crowd was distracted, they could go about their business more easily.

  A tide of prisoners was now streaming toward the knotted mass, and the shouting became more intense, a cacophony that rose into the dank morning air like water vapor from a forest floor. What was happening? B’Elanna had to sidestep to avoid being run down by a trio of pale, scrawny humanoids who were covered with sores, but who were apparently desperate to get to the scene of whatever was happening.

  Ahead of them, a filthy, hunched old man was waving at the approaching crowds, beckoning them toward the growing cluster of observers. As B’Elanna and the two men neared him, he scrutinized them, puzzled. His nose was huge, and hooked, like that of a predatory bird. Long, stringy hanks of dirty gray hair hung from his head, and he twisted one nervously as he talked.

  “Are not you wishing to see the fracas?” he asked, in a voice that sounded like a death rattle. “Myself will I hold the wagers, for you be not wanting to trust any others.”

  “What’s happening?” asked Chakotay, and the man seemed even more surprised.

  “Do not you know that this is the sometime waited-for challenge by Loord the Noarkan against the brute Troykis? Many suns in the waiting, with ill attitudes climbing ever so high. Will not you wager? And if may I offer, Loord is much determined to depose Troykis. Assume his victory and reward will be reaped.”

  “No, thanks,” B’Elanna said. This was the perfect time for them to do their mapping, when so much attention was going to what sounded like a grudge fight.

  The old man shrugged and immediately lost interest in them, waving a bony talon toward others who were hurrying along. B’Elanna, Chakotay, and Harrison stayed on their course for the southwest corner of the stockade, feeling something like salmon swimming against the stream.

  The southwest quadrant of the camp had thinned out considerably, although not everyone had gone to see the fight. Those who were too old, too infirm, or too sick remained sprawled on the ground, their suffering unrelieved by the prospect of witnessing combat. B’Elanna noted that there was a rise to the land here, giving them a better overview of the camp than they had had before. The three climbed to the highest point, a knoll topped by a clever shelter of wood and thatch, and surveyed their new surroundings.

  “Quite a sight,” murmured Chakotay as they took stock. From their vantage point they could see the entire camp, a vast, sprawling ribbon of squalor contained inside the foreboding walls of the dark metal stockade. Thousands of beings swarmed the meadow, sluggish fire ants, pulsing, undulating, as though the mass of prisoners composed one organism, one entity that throbbed with torpid life.

  Now they could see the “arena” where the fight was taking place, a circle of hundreds of prisoners surrounding an open space some thirty meters in diameter. Within that ring hunched two beings who circled each other warily, eyes locked on one another, ready to spring at the other or dodge a blow. They were a study in contrasts, as one was dark and shaggy, covered from head to foot with a mat of hair, while the other was fair and smooth-skinned. B’Elanna wondered for a moment which was the challenger and which the champion, then dismissed the thought as irrelevant. It was a silent drama enacted a hundred meters from them; only the sound of the shouting spectators rose to the distant knoll on which they stood.

  They turned their attention to their task, and were busy estimating distances and topographical features when they saw something the crowd watching the fight didn’t. One of the side portals of the stockade wall had opened, and through it emerged a phalanx of four guards, loping toward the arena area on their three legs.

  “Uh-oh,” said Harrison, and without knowing why they did it, they aped the behavior of the prisoners the day they’d arrived, pretending to busy themselves, collecting bits of rock and grass, as though this task were the most important in the world.

  They kept an eye on the drama below, however, sensing that it would soon encompass more than the battle in the ring. The spe
ctators of the fight were still oblivious to the approach of the guards, engrossed in the duel that was unfolding. The two combatants were now locked in a grip, rolling on the ground as the cries of the onlookers swelled to a wail.

  What happened next was truly horrible, and would haunt B’Elanna’s dreams for a long while. The three of them ceased their aimless activity and stared, appalled, at what was transpiring below them.

  As the guards approached the cluster of spectators, whose backs were to them, they raised their massive weapons and opened fire. A stream of yellow energy vapor emerged and flooded the backs of the unlucky periphery. The people hit by the vapor burst into flame. The tumult that had been athletic exhortation became shrieks of agony as the guards cut a swath through the clumped mass, bodies falling aside and then writhing and rolling in fearful torment.

  The guards quickly broke through to the open ring, as the spectators realized too late their fate and began to run, panicked, stumbling and tumbling over each other in their desperate efforts to escape. The combatants themselves looked up in shock, their bodies still locked in struggle, a pose they would share in death. The guards trained their awful weapons on the pair and incinerated them.

  A panicked riot now ensued among the remaining spectators. Those at the rear of the circle opposite the guards had some chance of escape; among them B’Elanna saw the ragged gray locks of the wager-maker, who scuttled into a shelter and disappeared.

  But few others were as fortunate. The guards spread out, putting their weapons on continuous fire and swinging them in widening arcs, cremating anyone in range. Burning bodies fell to the ground, twisting, tormented, trying in vain to extinguish the cruel flames that were consuming them. Hideous cries resounded from the burning mass of bodies, and the stench of burnt flesh rose like a miasma.

  B’Elanna’s eyes lifted to the rest of the camp, and was astonished by what she saw. Everyone not directly involved in the slaughter was working feverishly but doing nothing, taking absolutely no notice of the carnage that was occurring. Heads did not lift, eyes did not seek out the events that played out around the awful arena. There was a kind of mass denial, a refusal to acknowledge the hideousness of what was being done. B’Elanna guessed that experience had taught them that the safest behavior in such circumstances was to feign indifference.

  She was unable to do so. She stared, unmoving, horrified, sick, her mind struggling to encompass the horror to which she was witness. The bodies were continuing to burn, even after they had stopped their agonal writhings, burn hotly, until nothing was left but a skeleton to which was affixed hunks of charred meat.

  The guards finally stopped firing and simply stood, watching as their victims perished. When they were satisfied that a sufficient number had been punished, they turned back toward the portal in the wall through which they had emerged, and loped back to their posts.

  It had taken minutes. Retribution for whatever offense had been committed had been swift and dreadful, but was it expected? B’Elanna wondered if the prisoners knew they were risking such awful punishment, or if the guards behaved unpredictably, changing the rules without warning, on a whim. She couldn’t imagine the fight taking place so openly if they had even vaguely suspected the consequences.

  The next event was even more hideous.

  As soon as the guards were done, prisoners set upon the charred bodies, ripping black flesh from the bones and consuming it. B’Elanna felt her stomach contract, her vision blur. Nausea flooded her, and she put her head down, bringing blood to her brain. In a moment, she felt slightly better, and turned to her companions. They were as pale as she imagined she was. Perspiration beaded Harrison’s face, and his eyes were haunted. Chakotay stared solemnly down toward the newly created crematorium, one vein in his temple throbbing.

  Finally he turned to them, and said quietly, “You do what you have to to survive. Let’s keep going.”

  B’Elanna found herself relieved. Work, purpose, activity—those time-honored elements would help to eradicate the sights and sounds they had just experienced. Do your job, fulfill your responsibility, keep going. In the end, that was always best.

  That night it was a sobered group that ate the unappetizing rations—grain cake again—and huddled around the small fires. B’Elanna, Chakotay, and Harrison had told them briefly and tersely what they had witnessed; most were unaware that anything had happened, so complete was the denial of the other prisoners, though most had noticed the acrid stench that had permeated the already odoriferous air in the stockade.

  “We could use a change of subject,” said Chakotay quietly. “B’Elanna, maybe you could take our minds off this place for a while.”

  B’Elanna found that she wasn’t reluctant to chronicle her life, and was in fact almost eager. She would do anything that would take her away from this wretched site, from the searing memories of what she had seen this morning. Even if that meant speaking of the greatest pain that had ever assailed her.

  CHAPTER

  6

  OF HIS LEAVING, SHE REMEMBERED NOTHING.

  Of the time before his leaving, she had only the most vaporous of memories: a strong, deep voice . . . arms with dark hair curling on them . . . jumping into those arms from a platform in a lake . . . the scent of the plains of Nessik after a summer rainstorm . . . her hair being tied in tight braids . . .

  . . . and the voices, subdued and angry, that made her stomach twist and her hands turn strangely wet. Their arguments.

  Of the time after his leaving, and of her mother, she remembered too much.

  “B’Elanna, HighoS! Come out this minute. I won’t let you hide in your room like a cowardly puff cat.”

  “I’m not coming.” Her voice sounded anything but brave, eight-year-old B’Elanna admitted to herself, but she determined not to give in to her mother this time. This time, she would do what she wanted.

  “You can’t let them shame you into hiding. That’s not how Klingons behave.”

  “I don’t care! I’m not Klingon!”

  There was a brief silence, and then the rattling of the door to her bedroom. “B’Elanna—open this door immediately.” Her mother’s voice had taken on a new and more definitive tone. It was one with which B’Elanna was familiar, and which ordinarily struck dread into her heart. Today, she steeled against it. She had activated the electronic lock on the door, and she would stay in her room until she died. How long did it take to starve to death? No matter. However long it took, she would stay right where she was, under her bed with her stuffed cat, Gato, beside her. They would lie like that forever, until her body rotted away and only the bones were left, small skeleton fingers still clutching Gato’s fluffy pelt.

  Moments later, she heard the door open and saw her mother’s feet and legs as she entered the room. The legs moved toward her, and then her mother’s face, ridged and bony, appeared in her view.

  “Come out from there. I won’t have you hiding.”

  Dismayed, B’Elanna scrunched forward and emerged from her safe place. How had her mother gotten in?

  As though she’d read her mind, Prabsa Torres stared at her and said, “It doesn’t do any good to activate the lock. I can disable it whenever I want. What if there were a fire and I had to get you out? Or you were sick and couldn’t open the door?”

  What if I wanted to starve to death? thought B’Elanna, but the thought went unspoken. She just wanted to get through this as quickly as possible.

  Her mother sat at her desk and looked at her with black eyes probing. “Well? Do you want to tell me what happened? And why do you have that dirty scarf around your head?”

  B’Elanna’s hand went instinctively to her forehead. She tugged the scarf—a scrap she had found discarded on the street—farther down in defiance. “Nothing’s going on. And I’m wearing the scarf because I like it.”

  Something seemed to drain from her mother, and her next statement was softer, less challenging. “You left the house to go to the park an hour ago. Not wearing a scarf. T
hen you came running home as though you were being chased by Fek’lhr himself and slammed into your room. Something happened to upset you, and I want to know what it was.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Were the other children taunting you?”

  In spite of herself, a sharp breath escaped B’Elanna’s lips. Taunting her? No, not at all. That would be something she could confront. But the indifference the others showed her—how could anyone confront that? It might as well not exist. Except that it did, as clearly as though the children of the outpost on Nessik were shouting it aloud.

  “No, they weren’t.”

  “Did you get in a fight?”

  You’d be proud of me if I had, thought B’Elanna, but that idea went unspoken as well. “No. No fight.”

  “Did you fall? Get hurt?”

  “No.”

  Her mother looked at her with increasing exasperation. “We could go on like this all day. Just tell me what happened.”

  “I already told you—nothing.”

  Prabsa drew a sharp breath, clearly vexed. She looked for a moment out the window as though to gain control of herself, and then she began speaking.

  “Once, when Kahless had been walking in the desert for eighty days . . .”

  B’Elanna rolled her eyes. Not this again. Not another Klingon story with a lesson to be learned. Why did her mother inflict these morality tales on her? What good did she think they did? They were foolish, empty stories that B’Elanna found embarrassing. She couldn’t believe her mother actually thought she might learn something from them. They were all alike—long, rambling legends featuring the exploits of one Klingon hero or another, all ending with some nugget of wisdom by which, she assumed, her mother thought she should live.

  As her mother droned on, her mind wandered, back to the park and the scene of her latest humiliation. A group of little girls—pretty girls, human girls—were playing there, practicing the ball-kicking techniques of Pre-Squares, the game that provided the foundation for the adult sport of Parrises Squares.