“All right, Reg, you can do this.”
He snapped the tricorder to his belt, leaving it turned on, and activated the hand-light. Then, with phaser drawn, he entered the structure. Before he had taken three steps Reg stopped, gagging. He had never smelled rotting flesh before, [108] but little doubt touched his mind about the stench that assaulted him. Then he found a severed arm covered with bug things. He rushed outside and vomited.
All he wanted to do was run back to the shuttle and hole up until the Enterprise came back. That might be the only thing to do in the end, but first he had to go back inside. Carter’s and Ying’s lives might depend upon it. Even if that were not the case, he had a duty to record what he could before the bugs had finished their grisly meal.
The second trip inside went a little easier, only because he was prepared for the worst. Besides dealing with the horrible scene itself, he also had to fight down a growing fear that one of the loathsome, glistening bugs would land on him and take a bite.
The interior of the science station looked as if a tornado had erupted inside its walls. Equipment and experiments lay smashed and scattered, crushed in some cases. He would find no usable med-station here. His tricorder showed that the only energy weapons used had been phasers, probably fired by the biologists in a desperate effort to defend themselves. But from what?
The poor devils had been torn limb from limb, hacked to pieces. And in spite of the stench, the readings indicated the massacre had happened within the last three hours. He thought that all five were there, but it would take a medical team to be sure. Reg collected two more phasers, both nearly at full charge, and was about to leave the dark tomb when his beam caught the edge of a tricorder poking from beneath an overturned table. He removed it and went back outside. The tricorder was barely functional, with little power left, but he was able to bring up a visual playback.
[109] The scene was a nightmare. Something huge crossed in and out of the picture in a blur at normal speed. Reg backtracked the record and slowed down the motion. He saw the bright discharge of phasers and then there it was, facing whoever had held the tricorder. Reg froze the picture and nearly froze himself.
The thing must have stood over three meters high. It was a dull green in color with a wide straight torso and thick, powerful legs. Its entire body seemed to be covered by a shell or armor. Four multifaceted eyes gleamed red from a nightmare head sporting dozens of short, prickly horns. The creature had a tearing beak and four massive arms ending in huge talons. Reg gave a mental salute to the person with the tricorder who had kept on recording in the face of such a horror.
He let the picture run on, thankful that the sound was not functioning. Even at one-third speed the monster moved toward the recorder with terrifying quickness. A phaser beam caught it full in the chest area, but the claws closed over the screen, and then the picture went black. Numbly, Reg transferred the record into his own tricorder, including the lifesign readings of the creature.
He stood for a moment looking at the station, thinking of the three men and two women who had come here seeking only to learn. Instead, they found a horrible death without even knowing why. The thing had attacked and slaughtered with a ferocity that made him sick just thinking of it. And he had found not one clue as to a motive. There was supposed to be no intelligent species on this planet, and yet this creature had deliberately broken into the station, determined to kill and destroy. It might be some sort of territorial [110] protection, he thought, but without much conviction. He also couldn’t picture that thing firing missiles at the shuttle. But he shouldn’t assume anything yet.
Another of the throaty cries came through the fog, and Reg shook himself. Fear drove away his numbness, and he checked the lifesigns of the noisemaker against those stored in his tricorder. Not a match, thank the stars. But now he hated this hill, hated this mission, hated the whole damned planet. If he made it back to the Enterprise alive, he’d curl up in the clean, safe confines of the engineering section and never leave. Let someone else play leader. Reg Barclay just wasn’t made for this sort of thing. That thought brought Ying and Carter back into his thoughts along with a stab of panic.
He had found nothing to help them survive. And what if that thing found them while he was away? His puny force field wouldn’t hold up for a second. Adrenaline surged through his veins as Reg set his tricorder to scan for the creature, grabbed a phaser in each hand, and plunged into the grayness.
Ro came to the decision to see Captain Picard after the end of a six-hour shift on the planet’s surface, laboring to repair one of several reactors. She had worn an oxygen mask to ward off the noxious gases from the eruption, but her head throbbed all the same. Through it all, she could not shake the nagging fear that “Dolmak’s Eyes” had spawned. Then, at a moment of near exhaustion and hunger as she struggled with a reluctant generator, something had come back to her of Glym’s tale. Something that truly did frighten her, if what she now suspected were true. A big if.
By all rights she should go to Troi. Dreams and such were [111] the counselor’s specialty. But the captain was an expert on archaeology. Besides, she trusted Picard more than anyone she had ever known. Ro reached forward and signaled for admittance to his quarters.
“Come.”
She entered and stood uncertainly near the doorway. Captain Picard was dressed in a white robe and sat propped up on his bed, a drink on his nightstand and an old-style book on his lap.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but I need your help.”
The captain looked as tired as she felt, but he managed a smile as he rose and offered her a seat on his couch. Ro accepted and Picard took the chair near his bed. Music played in the background; Mozart, she thought, though she wasn’t sure. Data had only recently introduced her to some of the great composers of Earth. Somehow this piece helped soothe the pounding in her skull.
“Would you like some tea or brandy perhaps?” he offered.
“No thank you, sir. I won’t keep you long.”
“Well, what can I do for you, Ensign?”
Ro took a deep breath and almost decided to back out before she made a fool of herself.
“Sir, do you know much about ancient Bajoran history?”
Picard leaned back in his chair and smiled broadly. “I know a bit about the ancient Bajorans.”
“Have you ever heard of ‘Dolmak’s Eyes’?”
Picard nodded. “Dolmak’s Eyes are one of those obscure little puzzles that make archaeology so fascinating. All I know are the lines taken off an old scroll, just a fragment of something longer. Now how did it go? ... something like [112] “Our tears drown the seas while death hunts beneath the eyes of Dolmak.’ ” Picard took a sip from his glass and then added, “Dolmak was the ancient Bajoran god of revenge, but no one seems to know what the fragment referred to.”
“It’s part of a song, a chant really,” Ro said. “I heard it in full as a small child in the camps. From a spinner who sang to us in Bajoran so we would remember our heritage and keep our language. I’ve forgotten most of it, but a piece came back to me today.”
Picard leaned forward at her words, his expression intense, almost fierce.
“What I remembered is: ‘Beware the deathless Tovang. What was won could not be taken. What was lost could not be spared. Our tears drown the sea while death hunts beneath the eyes of Dolmak.’ ”
Furrows creased the captain’s brow as he considered the words. Then he shook his head. “You’ve added a valuable piece, but it’s still a puzzle. Much knowledge has been lost or forgotten by the scattering of your people. I’d like to meet one of these spinners one day. But what made you think of it now?”
“Those binary stars reminded me of eyes, sir. Since planets, much less livable ones, are rare in binary systems, I did some checking. On a hunch, I guess. I even had information sent by subspace from the archives on Bajor. The Tarvo system lies at the edge of the old Bajoran Republic.”
Picard stood and paced. “You think
those suns are the eyes of Dolmak?”
Ro pressed her hands against throbbing temples. She had gone too far to back down now. “Yes, sir. According to the archives, two thousand years ago my people fought a war [113] against a nonhumanoid race called the Vorel. They may have been insectlike, though the records are incomplete. The Bajorans eventually won the war and took possession of several star systems including the Tarvo system. But there is no record of any colony having ever been placed there. Or maybe it was abandoned.”
Picard gave her a sharp glance. “ ‘What was won could not be taken.’ Yes, that might fit.”
“I think so, sir. And thinking of the other verses, I can’t shake the feeling that the away team and those biologists could be in terrible danger.”
Reg was nearly halfway down the hill when the tricorder signaled it had picked up a matching set of lifesigns. He skidded to a stop on the mossy hillside and checked the reading. Four kilometers away and bearing straight for him. Maybe it was headed back to the station. He hurried on and almost fell when something slithered across his path before disappearing behind a bush.
Reg emerged from the mist near the bottom of the hill and ran down a shallow ravine toward the base of the adjacent hill that hid the shuttle on its far slope. Then he began to climb again. After a few dozen meters he stopped and checked the tricorder. The thing had changed course and was still headed straight at him, now only three and a half kilometers away. Reg checked the heading again. It had to be a fluke.
Just to prove it, he veered ninety degrees to his left, maintaining his height on the hillside. He trotted for about a hundred meters before taking another reading. Reg read the instrument in disbelief. His pulse pounded in his ears, [114] and it felt as if a cold hand had suddenly gripped his heart.
If he returned to the shuttle, he’d lead that killing machine right to Carter and Ying.
Feeling as if his heart had sunk to his ankles, Reg examined the thick row of trees below and shuddered. But what choice did he have? He ran down the slope and slipped between a pair of trees and into the jungle. The foliage grew close together, choking off any hope of an easy path through. Worse, the ground grew soggier with each step. Mud sucked at his ankles, and stagnant pools, reeking of decay, blocked his path, forcing him to circle. Flying things buzzed and whined around his face. Fog had begun to gather. Every time he checked the tricorder, the signals of his pursuer had grown nearer.
As he splashed along the edge of a particularly large pool, his foot caught on a snag and he fell into the water, sinking nearly up to his waist in slime and mud. Something brushed against his leg underwater and he panicked, thrashing his way back onto the shore. Then he staggered across an open mossy space, leaned back against a tree trunk, and gasped for air. The tricorder showed the monster only two and a half kilometers behind.
You can’t outrun it, Barclay.
He could stand and fight, but he’d have no more chance than the biologists. Maybe he could rig a cross fire with the three phasers, but the creature was too quick and heavily armored. If it could sense his lifesigns at a distance, then hiding was equally useless. He must also assume that its other senses were sharp. Except its eyes, perhaps. Multifaceted arrangements often had limitations. But it might have heat-sensing organs, especially if it hunted at night.
[115] Reg sagged. He was a dead man.
A wave of dizziness came over him, followed by a new thought. Classic predator-prey, but you’ve got it backwards. As usual. It was the kind of insight he got sometimes, out of nowhere it always felt like, but he knew better. The Cytherians had returned his intelligence to its normal level after their encounter four years earlier, but some shadow of that exalted state remained behind and would show itself now and again. Like now.
Backwards. Of course.
It could be done. Faceted eyes might mean poor detail vision, but he’d have to do something about the other senses. Yes, if he had the time he could do it. He used the tricorder to calculate the creature’s speed and start a countdown. Reg gulped. Fewer than eight minutes! He yanked off the tricorder panel and frantically reprogrammed the necessary circuits to allow it to transmit a signal. Next he set the three phasers to overload at the same instant and then began to rip up huge handfuls of moss until he had an impressive mound stacked near the tree. As he dropped to the ground and began to remove his boots, another realization hit him from some deeper core.
He was thinking like a spider.
That thought was cut short by the sound of snapping tree limbs coming through the fog.
Ro waited tensely at her station as the Enterprise pulled into orbit. She was the reason they had screamed back here at warp 5. All over what might be just a Bajoran myth. Now she hoped she had been wrong about everything.
“Sunspot activity has diminished, Captain,” Data said. [116] “There is no trace of the neutrino beacon, but we have full communication and transporter function to the surface.”
“Very well. Ensign Ro, hail the away team.”
Ro sent the hail, but the seconds ticked by in silence.
“No reply, sir.”
“Try again.”
“Repeating hail.”
Nothing. Ro squeezed one hand into a fist as more seconds ticked by. Then a rasp came through the comm.
“Yi-n-g here. Hurt. I—”
There was no more.
“Commander Data, are you locked on?” Picard asked.
“I have a lock on two human lifesigns inside what appears to be the shuttle.”
“Beam them directly to sickbay.”
After a short delay Doctor Crusher’s voice sounded on the comm. “We have Ying and Carter, both alive.”
Ro felt a wave of relief, but where was Reg Barclay?
“Can we raise the science station, Commander?” Picard asked.
“Negative, sir,” Data said.
“Ensign Ro, hail Lieutenant Barclay again and begin scanning the area around the shuttle. Counselor, can you sense anything?”
“I’m not sure, sir. I’m feeling something, but it’s very confused. A great tenseness or expectation, maybe.”
Ro blinked at what she saw on the scans, checked it again, and reported. “Sir, I’ve picked up human lifesigns, a single individual, about two kilometers from the shuttle. It could be Bar—” Ro stopped short and gasped.
“Sir, there’s been an explosion at the same coordinates.”
* * *
[117] Reg was scraping mud off his face when he heard the combadge’s chirp. The device was lying in the mud just a few steps away. Maybe Ying had come to and was trying to find him. Limping slightly, he walked over and retrieved it.
“Barclay here.” To his astonishment, he heard Data’s voice.
“Lieutenant Barclay, prepare to be beamed aboard.”
“Wait, Ying and Carter—”
“They are aboard and safe. Do you require medical assistance?”
He had a scrape or two and something had stung his calf, but mostly it was the mud that bothered him.
“What I really need is a bath. One to beam up; no, wait—I need to get something.” He limped around the edge of the gaping, water-filled crater where the tree had stood. The creature’s head had fallen in one piece and was the only body part left that he could see. Had he really been a spider, it would have made a disappointing meal. Maybe Doctor Crusher and the ship’s biologists could make something of it. The thing was heavy, but he managed. Thankfully, no gore oozed from the neck cavity.
“One to beam up.”
Reality dissolved into a sparkling mist about the same time that Reg remembered that he was naked. When the world came into focus again, he stood on a transporter platform facing four officers. Captain Picard looked astonished, Commander Riker wore a bemused grin on his face, Beverly Crusher put one hand over her mouth, and Deanna Troi stared at the head he carried. Or so he hoped.
[118] He shifted the grisly trophy under one arm, though the short horns pushed against his sides, and stra
ightened himself. At that moment, the concept of embarrassment felt as alien as the creature’s head itself.
“Lieutenant Reginald Barclay reporting, sir.” Then with a dignity he truly felt, Reg stepped from the platform and approached the officers.
“Request permission to go to my quarters and clean up, sir.”
Picard looked him straight in the eye.
“Permission granted. Do you wish to be beamed there?”
Reg shook his head without hesitation and said, “No, sir. It’s not far.”
The captain nodded, his expression now as sober as ever. “Very well, Lieutenant. Then report to sickbay and to me after that. It seems we have a lot to discuss.”
Picard’s eyes strayed to the severed head. Only then did Reg realize the effect the gruesome thing must be having on them. He could imagine the questions that must be filling their minds. With no lids to cover the ruby-domed eyes, the head looked as if it could be alive. That made the long, razor-sharp tearing beak that much more formidable.
“Yes sir,” Reg said and then turned to Doctor Crusher. “This is for you,” he said and handed her the head. He had never seen a gift received more reluctantly. Then he turned and marched out of the room and down the corridor, as naked and unashamed as the day he was born.
Reg sat in the ready room and watched as Captain Picard scanned the last of the report. It felt wonderful to be clean again. And safe. His only regret was that the confident, [119] naked man who had marched triumphantly from the transporter room was gone. He gave a little sigh.
Commander Riker, Data, and Geordi were also there, and to his surprise, so was Ro Laren.
Picard chuckled.
“A straw man with a bomb inside. Classic use of a decoy. Most ingenious, Mr. Barclay. But how did you think of it?”
“Thank you, sir. I realized that I couldn’t run away or hide. It had some kind of sense that acted much like a tricorder. What happened to the biologists ruled out a direct phaser attack. Then I realized that with a little reprogramming, my tricorder could transmit any lifesigns it had recorded, my own in particular. But I had to fool the creature’s other senses. So, I stuffed my uniform with moss and hid the tricorder and phasers inside.
STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds I Page 10
