by KATHY OLTION
“Dammit,” he muttered again, turning once around. A tricorder might find her, but he had left his in the shuttle, and by the time he got it and came back, she could be another hundred yards away.
Scotty came running up to him. “Did ye catch her?”
“No.”
“Nova!” Scotty called.
They looked for a few minutes, but there was no sign of her. McCoy went back for his tricorder, but that didn’t help. Finally he said, “She’s gone. We’ll just have to keep the door open and hope she comes back.”
“What if somebody catches her?” Scotty said. “They might mistake her for vermin.”
He had a point. McCoy thought about it for a moment, frowning. “Then we’ll just have to put up posters.”
He led the way back to the shuttle. It was the work of a moment to call up an image of a gray tabby cat from the data banks, but it took a bit longer for the computer to translate the message “Lost cat—please return to landing bay 7405, space 93” into the local trade language. The result looked like flyspecks and bird tracks around the photo, but the computer assured them it was the proper translation.
McCoy dithered a moment, then told it to add “reward offered” to the bottom. This was a trading station, after all. He couldn’t expect anyone to do anything for free.
They printed out two dozen posters and stuck them all around the cargo bay and in the hallways, then went back to the shuttle and closed the doors until only a hand’s width remained for Nova to slip through if she returned. Scotty pulled the power module from the door to make sure nobody could open it any farther, then he turned back toward the station side of the bay and said, “Now we’d best go find us a watering hole and listen for news.”
McCoy liked the sound of that. If there was anything like a mint julep to be had around here, he could gladly spend some time sipping one and listening for information.
Chapter Twenty
“WHO EVER HEARD of a tavern that wouldn’t serve a paying customer?” Deloric asked. He and Terwolan trudged down the long corridor toward the landing bay where their ship waited. Their footsteps echoed in the metal confines, but they had to compete for volume with the growling of their stomachs. The shuttle hadn’t been stocked with food, and the only tavern they could find within walking distance didn’t take Kauld military ration chits in trade.
“We’ll find a currency exchange booth tomorrow,” Terwolan said. “Or a pawnshop. There’s plenty of mining equipment we can sell.”
“Yes, but I’m hungry now,” he reminded her.
“Me too, but we’ll just have to tough it out. Nothing’s open now.”
“This is Naresidan! How can all the pawnshops be closed?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a religious holiday.”
They emerged into the landing bay. Deloric shielded his eyes against the glare from the overhead lights until he spotted their shuttle, then led the way down the cargo-choked dock toward it. He considered trying to bum a ration pack from one of the dockhands unloading a ship a few berths down from theirs, and he was still working up his courage when he saw the creature sniffing around the partially melted forward landing leg of their shuttle.
“There!” he said, coming to a stop and holding out an arm to keep Terwolan from getting any closer and scaring it away.
“Where?” she asked. “What do you see?”
“Dinner,” he whispered. He pointed toward the gray, furry thing. It looked a bit thin, and that tail would have practically no meat on it, but there had to be enough on its haunches to take the edge off until morning.
Terwolan snorted. “That? I may be hungry, but I’m not desperate. Besides, it looks faster and meaner than either of us. How would you catch it?”
The creature lifted its head and looked at them with wide green eyes, then it stood and rubbed up against the landing strut. It did look like it could move quickly if it had to.
“Maybe if I go around behind it, we could come at it from both sides.”
Terwolan pointed at the countless bolt-holes among the unloaded cargo containers that the creature could run into. “We’d have try—hey, wait a minute.” She walked over to the wall and pulled down a sheet of paper stuck there. “Look at this. It’s somebody’s pet.”
Deloric looked at the photo. It certainly did look like the creature. Then he noticed the words at the bottom: “Reward offered.”
“I wonder what it’s worth?” he asked.
“A meal would be good enough for me.”
“Me too.” He walked slowly closer, then knelt down and held out his hand. “Here, little creature. Come here.”
The thing took a step toward him and sniffed, then backed away.
“It can probably sense what you wanted to do to it,” Terwolan said. “Let me try.” She took a couple more steps toward it, then bent down and held out her hand and the creature trotted right up to her. She rubbed the fur on the back of its head, then stroked its sides. “It’s soft,” she said. “Let’s see if it’ll let me pick it up.”
It did. Then it climbed up her arm and settled in across her shoulders, holding itself in place on her clothing with tiny hooked claws. “Uh . . . where did that poster say the owners’ ship is parked?” she asked nervously.
“Space 93. Only five down from ours.”
“Good. Let’s go before it eats me.” Terwolan stood up slowly and set off down the landing bay, walking carefully.
They found the ship easy enough—a modified freighter or tug of some sort that was all engines now— but there was no one home. Both airlock doors were ajar, obviously left that way so the creature could come and go, but nobody answered when Deloric yelled in through the opening.
“Now what?” he asked.
“It’s squirming,” Terwolan said. “It—ow!” The creature dropped off her shoulder and slipped inside the airlock.
“Oh, great. There goes our reward.”
Terwolan looked at the airlock, then at the poster in Deloric’s hand. She tugged it out of his grip and sat down on the ramp with her foot covering the bottom-most part of the opening. “Maybe not,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we brought their—” she looked at the poster again “—their cat home. We put it inside where it belongs. Now we’re guarding the door.”
Deloric looked around at the landing bay, empty except for the team unloading the one cargo ship. “It could be a long wait.”
“We can either go back to our shuttle and listen to our stomachs growl, or do it here and hope for a meal. Which would you rather?”
“Well, when you put it like that. . . .” He sat down next to her and stuck his foot in the crack above hers. It felt awkward, and the creature could probably jump right over both of their feet if it wanted to, but they might be able to stop it if they were quick.
They didn’t have to try. Only a few minutes after they sat down, they heard footsteps in the corridor and a voice saying, “Who ever heard of a tavern that wouldn’t serve a paying customer?”
Two tall, pinkish bipeds entered the cargo bay and headed straight for Deloric and Terwolan. Both wore red leggings; one of them was also dressed in red from the waist up, the other in green.
“Hey now, what are you two doing there?” said the one in red.
Deloric felt the blood drain from his face. He had seen their kind before.
“You’re human,” he said.
“Aye, an’ you’re Kauld. What kind of mischief are ye up to with our ship?” The human held his hand near his weapon, but he hadn’t drawn it yet.
Terwolan held up the poster, moving slowly to keep from startling him. “We found your pet. It ran inside when we set it down, and we were making sure it didn’t get out again.”
“Did ye, now?” The human didn’t relax, but the one behind him unclipped a rectangular sensing device from his belt and held it out toward the ship. It whistled a warbling two-tone note for a few seconds, then the human holding it lowered the ga
dget and said to the other one, “She’s inside the shuttle, all right. And you two,” he said to Deloric and Terwolan, “have second-and third-degree radiation burns all over your faces and arms. What happened to you?”
Deloric looked over at Terwolan. Her smooth blue skin was now an angry violet, with blisters beginning to form on her forehead and cheeks. Her forearms were starting to peel. The human could see all that, but could it see the real injury? Deloric could. The haunted look in her eyes no doubt mirrored his own. They had thought they could run away from it, but it had followed them all the way to Naresidan.
His mouth grew dry. To speak would be treason! But to remain silent would be the death of his honor. He heard the rustle of paper as Terwolan crumpled the poster in her fist, and knew she was fighting the same battle.
“What happened?” the human asked again.
He could at least answer that. “We were hit with a laser.”
“It sure looks like it. Haven’t you done anything for it?”
Nothing can be done, he wanted to say. It’s already been fired. But he held his tongue.
Terwolan said, “There was an ointment in our medical kit, but we used it up.” She flattened the poster again and held it out to him. “You promise a reward. If you will pay us, we can seek medical help.”
Deloric’s stomach chose that moment to growl. “And food,” he said.
The human stuck his sensor back on his belt. “Why don’t we cut out the middleman? I’m a doctor, and if you don’t mind ration packs, we’ve got food inside.”
The other human said, “But these are Kauld!”
“And they brought our cat back.”
“They did that before they knew we were human. We can’t trust ’em on board our ship.”
Choosing his words carefully, Deloric said, “Not all of us feel the same way about you. We—the two of us—have renounced the war.”
The one in red didn’t look mollified, but the one in green said, “According to my scan, they’re not carrying any weapons. We can feed ’em and heal ’em and send ’em on their way.”
“That’s fraternizing with the enemy,” the other protested.
“The Kauld declared war on us, not the other way around. It’s my own choice how I act toward them, and these two are injured. I won’t turn them away.”
The tension between the humans was palpable. Deloric and Terwolan said nothing, waiting for them to make up their minds.
At last the one in red said, “All right. Be it on your head if there’s trouble. If you two would move aside for a moment. . . .”
They stepped off the ramp. Keeping his eye on them, he plugged a power module into the door controls and opened the airlock, disappeared inside for a moment, then came out again, his hand still hovering near his weapon. “Come on in,” he said, “but don’t touch anything.”
That was hard to do. The interior of the ship was cramped even for two. With four people on board it was like a locker room. It was hot enough to be a locker room, too. No wonder their pet had run away; it would be sweltering under all that fur. It was nowhere in evidence now, either, but Deloric assumed it was locked in one of the back rooms to keep it from running away again. All the doors were closed, hiding bunks and engine compartments and who knew what else.
The red-shirted human stood in front of the closed door to the control room. That must have been what he had done before letting Deloric and Terwolan in; sealed off everything but the tiny common area.
There was a tiny table with a padded bench on either side and a set of cabinets covered with food-preparation equipment. Deloric’s mouth watered at the sight of it.
The doctor motioned them to sit at the table, then he went into one of the back rooms and returned with a metal case full of medical instruments, one of which he switched on and waved in front of Terwolan’s face.
“This will help the burned tissue to heal instead of flake off,” he said.
An expression of wonder spread across her face, almost as if the instrument were repainting her features. “It’s stopped hurting!”
“Good.” The doctor turned his attention to Deloric, and he could feel the effect immediately. The tension in his muscles released, and the constant fiery heat faded back to normal.
“Now your arms,” said the doctor, and both Deloric and Terwolan laid their arms out so quickly that everyone—even the human in red—laughed.
The doctor switched to a smaller instrument and went over the same areas again. “This’ll cut down on the chance for infection,” he explained. He looked at Terwolan’s eyes, then nodded, apparently satisfied with what he saw there. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Terwolan,” she replied.
“Deloric,” Deloric said before the doctor could ask.
“Mine’s McCoy. That’s Mr. Scott.”
Deloric noted the honorific. Anyone holding him at gunpoint could be “Mister” as far as he was concerned.
“Now to take care of your other problem,” McCoy said. He unclipped the rectangular scanner from his belt again and examined them both, then nodded. “Looks like anything but shellfish ought to be fine. You like emu?”
Deloric shrugged. “I . . .”
“That was a joke, son.” McCoy opened one of the cabinets, selected two ration packs, and set them down in front of his guests. He peeled the top off of one and held it up for them to sniff as the self-heating contents began to steam. It was some kind of brown meat strips on a bed of white grain. Deloric’s stomach rumbled again, and Terwolan had to swallow to keep from drooling.
“That will do fine,” she said, taking the packet from the human’s hands.
McCoy opened the other one and handed it to Deloric, then gave them each a curved, multipointed tool to eat it with.
“So, what brings you to Naresidan Station?” McCoy asked as they set to.
Deloric was swallowing as the human spoke, but the food suddenly stuck in his throat. He coughed, tried to swallow again, but couldn’t manage it.
“Easy, man!” Mr. Scott said. “Take your time.”
“Wa . . . water!” Deloric gasped as Terwolan pounded him on the back.
McCoy turned back to the galley, filled a mug that was sitting on the counter, and handed it to him. The water tasted of something burned, but he didn’t care; he swallowed a big gulp, washing down the lump in his throat.
“You all right?” McCoy asked.
Deloric nodded. He looked at the human, standing there before him so friendly and solicitous, even though the Kauld had caused his people immeasurable harm. He looked over to Terwolan and saw her staring at her food, unable to take another bite either.
“We have to tell them,” Deloric said.
She stiffened, but didn’t look up.
“Tell us what?” Mr. Scott asked.
Deloric took a deep breath. This was treason. But he had already committed himself. He looked back at McCoy and said, “In four days, a laser beam the width of the planet will strike your colony world, Belle Terre, burning everything in its path down to bedrock.”
The humans’ expressions were unreadable. McCoy seemed to grow paler, but Mr. Scott merely snorted and said, “A beam the size of a planet? Who are you trying to fool? With that kind of spread, it’d be lucky to melt snow.”
“It started out as wide as this station,” Deloric told him. “It doesn’t have to spread much to cover the planet by the time it gets there. And it’ll have more than enough power. The energy source was an olivium chain reaction.”
“Was?” Mr. Scott seemed paler now, too.
“Was. We were burned by the flash. The laser has already been fired.”
Chapter Twenty-one
KIRK AWOKE to the insistent beeping of a communicator. It took him a moment to place where he was; the room was pitch dark, and it didn’t have the familiar acoustics of his shipboard cabin.
Then he smelled the waxy candle smoke and the flowery, feminine aroma that could be found only in a woman’s bedroom, and
he remembered where he was. He slipped out of bed and felt for his clothing on the chair beneath the window, found the communicator, and stepped into the living room before flipping it open.
“Kirk here,” he said softly.
“Captain,” said Lieutenant Uhura. “I’ve got an incoming message from Dr. McCoy.”
McCoy? What would Bones be calling him for at this hour? It was even later ship’s time than here on the planet. “Put him through,” he said, already dreading the news.
“Jim?” came the doctor’s voice.
“What is it, Bones?”
“Well, I wish I could tell you I’ve got good news and bad news, but the fact is, I’ve got bad news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
Kirk moved deeper into the living room. “I’m not in the mood for jokes,” he said.
“Well, that’s good, ’cause that’s the only humor you’re likely to hear for a while. We found that Kauld fleet you were so sure was out here.”
Kirk felt the hair at the back of his neck start to stand out. “You did? Are you all right?”
“They didn’t spot us. They were doing war games, breaking in three new ships that look like they can beat the pants off the Enterprise. But that’s not going to be our first problem. According to somebody we met out here, the Kauld built a great big laser about five light-days out from Belle Terre. Olivium-powered, and big enough to fry the whole damn planet when the beam hits.”
He felt like he’d been hit already, sucker-punched in the gut. Five light-days out. That was the edge of interstellar space. Nobody had thought to look for problems out there, because nobody went there except to pass through under warp power on the way to somewhere else. If the builders were careful with their energy leakage they wouldn’t even need Gamma Night to hide their activity until they fired it. That would make a subspace ripple big enough to trigger alarms, but of course if they timed it right, every subspace sensor in the Belle Terre system would be blanked out at the time.
The Enterprise had to find it before they fired it, but a spherical shell five light-days out was a big volume to search. “Do you know what direction it’s in?”
