“Like I’ve been hit by a stampeding targ? Yeah. That about covers it.” Prynn closed her eyes, welcoming the blessed black of her eyelids. She burrowed deeper into her sleep bundle, burying herself in blankets. “Shar?”
A long pause.
The news must be bad. Please let him be all right. A faint tinge of panic.
Phillipa took a deep breath. “Shar’s fine, but a lot has happened.”
“I know. The shuttle, the police—”
“No. The shuttle was recovered. The Harbortown authorities brought you in. All that will be dealt with in due time.”
“Then what is it?”
“Vretha’s missing. She’s been kidnapped.”
Prynn jerked up—instantly felt like she’d body-slammed into solid ground—and cried out in pain. Cursing, she tried untangling herself from the sleep bundle, but Phillipa was pushing her back in, tucking the blankets around her. “You can’t do anything about it. As soon as I have more information, I’ll let you know.”
Urgency pushed through her agony. “But I have to—”
“No,” Phillipa said firmly. “You have to lie down, let the treatments work, and sleep off the pain for a bit longer. You’re very lucky, you know, that you were found when you were. Both you and Shar had lost consciousness. If it weren’t for Anichent, you, at the very least, would probably be dead.”
How—what—“Anichent?”
“He followed you and Shar to the keep’s hangar and managed to put a tracer on your shuttle before you launched. He had Shar’s biosignature on file, so he gave it and the tracer frequency to the Harbortown police to help them track you.”
Warmth ignited in her fingers, burned down her hands, into her wrists and up into her shoulders and neck, devouring her aches like tinder. Phillipa’s voice sounded far away—echoing—as if she were speaking through a funnel. Prynn tried opening her eyes, but drowsiness pressed heavily on her eyelids, forcing them closed and leaving her with one coherent thought.
Shar…
Phillipa left the sleep hall after Prynn had drifted back into a controlled sleep state. She hadn’t told her, but the keep physician had also administered a mild sedative. Just as well: Once she learned about Vretha’s kidnapping, Prynn would never allow herself time for her treatment to take effect. She would attempt to find Shar, offer him comfort, and ally herself to whatever course of action he chose. Such choices needed to wait until she felt better.
When they found her and performed a toxicology analysis, it was clear Prynn had consumed more than twice the usual saf dose—and not the same variety as the one Phillipa had purchased. That much she could take comfort in. The keep physician had explained that the Reiji ground their saf and stirred it into foodstuffs instead of following the usual skin application that allowed it to be absorbed more slowly—and safely—into the bloodstream. Phillipa wondered how she would ever explain any of this to Captain Kira—not to mention Commander Vaughn!—and quickly decided that particular problem would have to wait. The more immediate concern was Vretha’s disappearance.
Elsewhere in the keep, Thantis’s security staff were conducting their investigation, questioning residents, searching for clues. Phillipa hadn’t been invited to participate, but that came as no surprise. She was an outsider. Besides, no one ever assumes that the counselor knows much beyond what it means when you appear naked on a starship bridge during a dream, or how to overcome a fear of transporters. Her report on the missing saf had been noted, but not immediately assumed to be linked to the kidnapping. Phillipa believed otherwise. And she thought she knew where to find answers.
Of course, at first she hadn’t made the connection between the saf and Vretha either. Vretha was first reported missing, by her aide, roughly forty-five minutes after Phillipa had left Thantis’s study. The councillor had been late for a subspace meeting with Admiral Nakamura of Starbase 219 and the aide hadn’t been able to track her down.
Initially, there had been some question as to whether or not Vretha had been on the shuttle with Shar and Prynn. But the parking facility at Harbortown had recorded two passengers on the craft—not three.
Then the data chip had been found, ending speculation.
The chip had been left for Shar at the keep, and was waiting for him when he returned. Phillipa presumed the kidnappers had chosen him to be the recipient of their message in order to exploit the emotional turmoil it would create for him, maximize the urgency of meeting their demands. Whoever left it had been thorough: No DNA traces were found that might identify the kidnappers, and nothing in the chip or the message itself offered a clue as to whether it had been created on-or off-site. The demands were in text and unambiguous. Councillor zh’Thane would be returned only when the ruling Progressive Party launched a full-scale investigation into the unethical research that was claimed to be under way at the Andorian Science Institute. The government had a single Andorian day to comply with the demands, and to issue a public statement announcing the arrests of those involved in the alleged conspiracy. The kidnappers identified themselves as a militant faction of the Visionist Party who saw themselves as warriors fighting for the “true Andor.” Assuming that Homeworld Security would eventually figure out where the councillor had been taken, the message warned against any attempts to transport zh’Thane out, or a rescue team in. Pattern scramblers had been put in place. Otherwise, the kidnappers had no qualms about becoming martyrs.
Documents attached to the message—the authenticity of which couldn’t be verified—implied that experimentation involving the reconfiguration of Andorian chromosomal architecture was being conducted to eliminate the need to have four sexes to procreate. Chan, zhen, shen, and thaan would all cease to exist, presumably to be replaced by two new, reproductively compatible sexes.
Phillipa had been too shocked to speak when Shar let her examine the documents. Such experimentation was both biologically dangerous and culturally incendiary. She didn’t need to be an Andorian to understand that. Gender issues typically rippled through all aspects of a species: social structures, family life, religion, politics. Some of the greatest internal upheavals in the history of many worlds had resulted from issues relating either directly to gender or issues ancillary to gender. Who and what the Andorians were, and how they thought about themselves and their relationship to the universe, was defined in large part by their unique biology. For the Science Institute to investigate such a radical solution to the breakdown of their reproductive process spoke to their increasing desperation, that they were willing to create what amounted to an entirely new species from the dying remains of the old. In that scenario, everything—good and bad—that had risen from the four-gender paradigm would be lost. It was easy to understand how many might view such experimentation as the equivalent of the horrors perpetrated on the Bajorans by Cardassian doctors like Crell Moset, or what humans like Josef Mengele had done to their own kind during Earth’s Second World War. Bioethically, the forced reengineering of Andorian sexes could be considered a crime against sentient life.
Phillipa had questioned Shar about the claims, but he said he knew nothing about such a line of scientific inquiry. Nor, did it seem, was he inclined to spend much time dwelling on it; he was more concerned with formulating a strategy for insuring his zhavey’s safe return. Shar was already more or less fully recovered from his ordeal in Harbortown, but as his agitation following the news about the kidnapping increased, Phillipa feared for his frame of mind.
With Thantis’s help, he had contacted the government and apprised them of what had happened. Whoever he had spoken with had promised to send investigative teams from Homeworld Security to the Science Institute, as well as to the keep itself, but with continuing concern about the possibility of more violence breaking out, the soonest anyone would arrive on Cheshras Island was three hours from now. In the meantime, keep security would continue its own investigation, hoping to have something of value to report when Homeworld Security arrived.
Several facts weren
’t in question. The kidnappers had been at the keep before Deepening—ch’Shal, Thantis’s security chief, determined that much from the start. Apart from Charivretha herself, and her aide, no one had come to the keep since the arrival of Phillipa, Shar, and Prynn (until this morning, when the runaways had returned from Harbortown). Only the underground rail network connecting the five primary keeps on the peninsula had been accessed. But reviewing the security log data and tracking down eyewitnesses who might have seen something suspicious was painstaking work. At any given time, more than seven thousand people lived at Cheen-Thitar. Even if the obvious suspects—active Visionists or sympathizers, those who might have a grudge against Vretha—were culled out, the list still comprised the bulk of the keep with Sessethantis zh’Cheen at the top.
But Phillipa had her own theory. Armed with a double katheka—the local equivalent of stimulants like coffee or raktajino—she set out through the winding stone passages of the keep to prove it.
She quieted her steps upon entering the crèche. Save for a few zhavey s bathing their infants in basin stands, the snug room was virtually empty. Floor-to-ceiling tapestries depicting pastoral mountain scenes adorned the walls, a symphony of warm, soothing earth tones. Even the keep’s chilly stone floors had been carpeted. Abandoned sleep bundles had been pushed aside. The sour tang of freshly mashed xixu fronds wafted from the rear—Phillipa understood the cereal was the first solid food infants ate when weaning.
She found the object of her search removing a steaming mug from the replicator. Before Phillipa could speak, Thia held up a hand.
“I know why you’re here.”
“Do you?”
She nodded, took a deep breath, and turned to face Phillipa.
The counselor didn’t need to ask how the young zhavey had rested; Thia’s normally lucent complexion had dulled to gray blue, her robes rumpled. She projected none of the composure Phillipa had come to expect.
“You believe that I know something about Charivretha’s disappearance.”
“What makes you think that?” Phillipa played along.
“Because…” She swallowed hard. “Because I do.”
Vretha felt the saf wearing off; her muscles ached from the concentrated energy bursts that always accompanied its use. Even her bones hurt. I’m too old for that kind of stimulation, she thought, trying to recall the last time she’d used the drug, even with her mates. She understood its necessity to the shelthreth, but she hadn’t liked the feeling of being out of control, the sense that her body was a separate thing from her mind, a physical entity that acted of its own accord and wasn’t subject to her will.
Unfortunately, the saf’s hallucinogenic qualities made it nearly impossible for her to have any concrete recollections of what had happened to her over the last unknown hours. She’d been waiting at her desk, preparing for her subspace conference, when she’d heard footsteps behind her. Assuming it was her aide, she’d turned around, prepared to pass off a padd—after that, she knew only warped twisting impressions, color and sound filtered through a chemical prism. The hiss of a train, an aquacraft churning through the water, and now this place. She shifted her wrists slightly, discovering—not surprisingly—that they were bound; her ankles, similarly. She also suspected that the metal bands gouging into her upper arms functioned as transport inhibitors. Whoever they were, they intended to make it impossible for a rescuer to beam her out, forcing security into a face-to-face confrontation in order to free her. A wise strategy, she conceded. It will buy them time to have their demands met.
Allowing her captors to believe she was still unconscious, she lay still, her eyelids raised only enough to discern the barest details; she methodically analyzed her surroundings. Firm but shifting surface beneath her: sand. The air: no breeze, a damp musty cool. Craggy rock walls. The chill blue-white flood of artificial lighting. A cave. And deep enough underground for the temperature to be so constant.
“Welcome back, Councillor,” came a soft voice from the shadows.
Unwilling to grant even the smallest acknowledgment that she was aware of him, she remained motionless, closed her eyes.
“Come now. Such theatrics might work during a council meeting, but not here, where there are only the three of us.”
A boot nudged her leg.
Indignant at the crude treatment, Vretha spat on the ground in front of her.
“Temper, temper.”
She looked up. A broad-shouldered thaan, wearing an all-weather pullover coated in pink dust, crouched next to her. In his eyes, accentuated by bushy brows, she saw none of the harshness she would have expected in a captor; his unlined face revealed his youth—he couldn’t be much older than Shar. He thrust his chin forward, the aquiline line of his nose and cheekbones classically handsome and matched perfectly by the jauntiness of his posture. He isn’t a mercenary. This young one has a purpose, Vretha thought. She sighed inwardly. Revolutionaries are always young. She recalled once, a long time ago, when she’d had the same fervor burning in her that she saw in this thaan. Now…now she understood the practical realities of the quadrant. She spent most of her energy trying to preserve what they had; she had little energy left over to improve circumstances.
“Are you going to kill me?” she said hoarsely. Vretha’s throat felt scratchy; she cleared it, swallowed, but still felt sore.
Another one, a chan, pressed a water skin to her mouth, but she pinched her lips tight against it.
“It’s not poisoned,” the thaan said. Taking the skin from the chan, he poured a stream into his mouth. He then offered the skin to Vretha as the chan had before.
She drank more greedily than she intended, discovering she was drained from dehydration and hunger. When she was satisfied, she nudged the skin away with her cheek.
“The real question is, would killing you best serve our cause?” The thaan leaned in, his face coming close to Vretha’s. “And the answer to that, Councillor, has yet to be determined.”
Shar had been sufficiently dosed with analgesics and osmotic fluids to feel functional and coherent enough to endure ch’Shal’s questions. While the Reiji drink had been doctored with far more saf than was healthy for him, his Andorian physiology was equipped to metabolize it far more effectively than Prynn’s was.
Prynn. He couldn’t think of her without experiencing more guilt than he had felt since Thriss’s suicide. Memories of the previous night were murky at best, but he’d awoken, face buried in his sleeve, her scent on his clothes, and he’d flushed with both pleasure and embarrassment. Would she ever forgive him? She’d had an instinct about the Reiji encampment and he should have listened to her. Instead…they’d almost succumbed to drug-induced tezha before the overdose nearly claimed her life. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to take the first transport home.
He’d stopped in to see her not long ago and found her sleeping peacefully. Sitting by her side, he’d watched her, the slow rise and fall of her breathing, how her dark lashes curled like a child’s, and he was overcome with emotion. She’d come to mean so much to him. Allowing her to travel with him had been a mistake. He should have insisted that she remain at home, on DS9. If he’d adhered to his original resolve—to sever his ties to Andor—Prynn would have never been placed in danger and Zhavey—
Ch’Shal had shown him the security footage he had downloaded into a padd—grainy, muted recordings from the underground transportation network that held no meaning for Shar. Ch’Shal had proceeded to bombard him with requests for information: A chronology of his most recent communciations with Charivretha. An account of the circumstances that had brought him to Thelasa-vei instead of the capital, as he’d originally planned. Every word he could recall about his last bitter meeting with Zhavey. The details of his encounters with the other visitors and residents of the keep…. The questions went on, sometimes traveling in circles, it seemed, until Shar thought his antennae would break off from his mounting tension.
Seated at a reading table in one of the keep’s li
braries, surrounded by stacks of old scrolls and priceless crystalline sculptures, ch’Shal abruptly tapped his comm patch, apparently in response to a call. The chan excused himself, promising to return shortly. Shar sat alone in the vaulted room, feeling as if the overwhelming weight of his emotions would crush him. He looked down at the table. His right hand shook. He wrapped it tightly in his left and tried to calm himself. Stay Whole. You’re no good to her if you shatter….
Fifteen minutes later, ch’Shal returned, this time with Thantis, Phillipa, and Thia. The sentinel resumed his place at the table opposite Shar, while Phillipa sat between. Thantis and Thia remained standing. All of them looked grim. Thia wouldn’t even meet his eyes.
“Shar,” Phillipa began. “There’s something you need to know….”
She’s dead, he realized. They’ve found her, and she’s already dead….
“Arenthialeh zh’Vazdi has come forward and admitted that she’s an accessory to the kidnapping of Charivretha. She’s offered to help us in exchange for immunity from prosecution.”
Shar stared at the zhen. He recalled their first meeting, wondered if it had been staged, whether he had played into the hands of his zhavey’s political foes.
Thia. Thia all along….
“There’s more,” Phillipa said. “My saf sample was stolen. Only three people knew that I carried it. You, Prynn, and Thia. She—”
Before he was even aware of his own actions, Shar lunged, grabbing Thia by the throat with one hand, slamming her back against a stone wall. Whatever scream she might have released was trapped in his chokehold. He was dimly aware of Phillipa crying out, yanking at his other hand, which he had flattened and drawn back in preparation to drive it through Thia’s eyes. He heard the metallic shing of ch’Shal’s ceremonial blade being drawn, heard Thantis’s shouted order telling the sentinel to stand down—
And Thia…Thia had one narrow hand clawing useless at the wrist of his choking hand, her other arm wrapped protectively around herself.
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