Original Sin

by David R. George III

  “Freeze!” Sergeant Elvem suddenly yelled. Tey turned to see him with his back against the wall in a short passage. He held his weapon with two hands, raised in front of him and pointed toward an open door. Orisin appeared in the bedroom beyond.

  For a few seconds, nobody moved. Tey waited either for Elvem to fire or for somebody to emerge from the closet. Neither of those things happened, and finally the sergeant slowly stepped forward into the open doorway, his phaser still aimed before him. As he crouched down, Tey moved to the closet and looked inside. Beyond Elven, she saw the form of a portly woman on the floor, folded into the corner. Her chin rested against her chest and her eyes were closed.

  The sergeant reached forward and placed two fingers against the side of the woman’s neck. When Elvem looked back over his shoulder, Tey knew what he would say even before he opened his mouth. “She’s dead.”

  • • •

  Radovan deactivated the portable gamma-ray generator and stowed its emitter back in the device. He had just finished irradiating both the interior and exterior of the travel pod, destroying any biological traces of himself and the girl. He stood back and waited for the vehicle to activate itself. He had set it for automated operation, programming a haphazard course into the navigational system that would take it far from his current location and any settlements. He’d also wiped the record of the journey he’d made from Johcat, and disabled the automatic logging of the travel pod’s speed, direction, and location.

  At the edge of the wood, the reflected light of Derna, Penraddo, and Jeraddo provided the only illumination, casting the world beneath the three moons with a silvern glow. As Radovan waited for the travel pod to power up and move away, he gazed skyward at the trio of orbs that circled Bajor. Endalla had not risen, nor would it until the deepest hours of the night. It didn’t matter. Radovan considered himself the embodiment of Bajor’s largest natural satellite. Rejias Norvan had been convinced that the Ohalu texts pointed to subterranean evidence on Endalla of the veracity of the Ohalavaru beliefs. Starfleet and the Emissary had interfered with the quest to find that proof, but Radovan had been moving forward ever since then to deliver on that promise. The Ohalavaru hadn’t found the confirmation of their beliefs, but he would. He had listened to Rejias, he had read and reread The Book of Ohalu, and he had allowed the many dreams he’d experienced since the incident to coalesce in his waking mind. It had come together slowly at first, the pieces not quite fitting together, but he’d followed them, sometimes performing tasks without fully understanding where they would lead.

  They led here, Radovan thought. He stood at the edge of the Talveran Forest, staring up at a triad of Bajor’s moons, knowing that his path would soon end. He still didn’t quite know how, but he could sense his ultimate destination not far ahead. And in truth, he had an inkling of the way forward, in part because of those many tasks his dreams had impelled him to complete: kidnapping the girl, modifying his replicator, stockpiling drugs and chemicals, equipment and technology.

  He wondered if he should build something for the Avatar. A platform from which he could broadcast her delivering a message to the Ohalavaru? Or perhaps to all of Bajor? Or should he construct some sort of extreme transporter that would deliver her to the heart of Endalla so that she could point the way to the proof Rejias had sought? Could he concoct an elixir that would unleash her consciousness in a way that would embody the teachings of Ohalu?

  Or should it be something else? Radovan thought. Should he mix a poison for the girl to take? Cobble together a machine to deliver electric shocks to her tiny body? Should he—

  The travel pod droned to life. It slowly lifted from the ground, hovered briefly, redirected itself by spinning on its axis, then sped into the distance. Radovan stood there watching it, the radiance of the visible moons glinting off its metallic surface. It seemed emblematic of his connection with society, growing smaller with each passing moment.

  When finally the travel pod faded from view, Radovan switched on the wrist-mounted beacon he wore. Its bright white beam cut through the shadowy night and picked out the nearest trees, tall, leafy sentinels that stood guard at the brink of the Talveran Forest. He followed the light of his beacon into the dark wood, to where the moonglow could not penetrate. He padded along layers of fallen leaves, soft and sodden, his footsteps mere rustles in the night.

  Radovan pulled a small padd from his pocket and switched it on. He followed the digital map he’d loaded into it for half a kilometer until he reached a small clearing. He spotted his active sensor mask first, a narrow column mounted on a tripod base and topped by a bowl-shaped emitter. Beside it stood a transporter inhibitor, also switched on. A few paces farther on, his antigrav trunk and two duffels sat on the ground.

  Radovan set down the portable gamma-ray generator and placed his padd back in his pocket. He opened the trunk, unloaded its main compartment, then removed the false bottom. The girl still lay there unconscious, the breathing mask still over her face. Radovan noted that her respiration had grown shallow, and he wondered if he’d injected her with too much sedative. He took her wrist—such a small thing, so delicate in his hand—and felt for her pulse. It was still strong.

  After grabbing up a couple of items he’d brought with him, Radovan threw the beam of his wrist-mounted beacon out ahead of him and searched the surrounding ground. He had chosen the clearing for his encampment in part because it featured several patches of exposed stone. He located one such area and got down on his knees before it. He found a seam in the rock, centered a metal piton atop it, then used a sledge to drive its barbed end into the rocky earth.

  Over the next half hour, Radovan set up his camp. He placed a tarp and sleeping mat beside the exposed stone, then carried the unconscious girl over to it, covering her with a thermal blanket. He fixed a restraint just above her right wrist, then attached it via a chain to the piton he’d sunk into the rock. He erected a tent around her, then set up one for his own use. He brought the sensor mask and the transporter inhibitor closer, though he needn’t have, given the considerable ranges over which they functioned.

  Radovan drank some water and thought about having something to eat, but he feared that the excitement he felt would disturb his digestion. He climbed inside his tent, lay down on his sleeping mat, and pulled a blanket over him. He waited for sleep to take him in the hope that his dreams would point him to what came next.

  But Radovan lay awake in the darkness, his exhilaration for what he’d so far accomplished too great to overcome. He craved sleep, and the images that his slumbering mind would summon, but an hour passed with agonizing slowness. He worried over what he’d left behind in his flat. Radovan had utilized the replicator to recycle the child’s toilet seat and step stool he’d gotten, along with the entertainment padd on which the girl had drawn pictures. He’d tried to remove any traces of her from his flat, going so far as to use the gamma-ray generator to destroy any DNA she’d left behind. But none of that addressed the one item that, because of its size and nature, he had been unable to make vanish: Winser Ellevet’s corpse.

  Finally, unable to sleep, Radovan rose, gathered up his beacon, and decided to check on the girl. Leaving his tent, he saw that Derna and Jeraddo had set, while Penraddo had ascended high overhead. Endalla had just begun to peek over the tops of the trees at the rim of the clearing, and he dared to think that might be a sign of things to come. He made his way over to the other tent and squatted down before it. He turned the beacon on to its dimmest setting and pointed it at the ground. The residual light left him in a murky glow. He quietly pulled back the tent’s flap.

  The girl stared back at him from within, unmoving.

  Startled, Radovan barked out a guttural cry. He lost his balance and fell backward off his haunches, landing on the ground on his backside. His heart pounded in his chest.

  She just surprised you, Radovan told himself. That’s all. But it was more than that and he knew it. The girl’s eyes, reflecting the light of the beacon, ha
d appeared otherworldly.

  Stop it! he told himself. Be a man.

  Radovan pushed himself up onto his knees and swept back the flap of the tent again. The girl still sat there looking at him. He flashed the beacon onto her arm to ensure that she remained tethered.

  “I have to go,” the girl said. She spoke in a normal voice, which seemed too loud for their nighttime surroundings. The girl did not seem scared or even shaken by her current circumstances.

  “All right,” Radovan said. He pulled a key from his pocket and moved out of the tent, aiming the light on the manacle attached to the piton. He unlocked it, then fastened it about his wrist. He would take no chances of the girl getting away.

  After helping her on with her shoes, Radovan moved to pick the girl up. She refused, and so he led her over to his supplies, where he picked up some refresher tissue and another beacon. He led the girl to the edge of the clearing, shining his light ahead of them on the ground. Radovan took her just inside the trees. He offered to help, but she told him no, so he gave her the ’fresher tissue and the second beacon, then stepped back into the clearing. Radovan waited, wondering if the girl might try to escape, even though her wrist remained attached to his via a chain. She didn’t, and when she finished, he brought her back to her tent.

  “I’m hungry,” the girl said as he unfastened the manacle from his wrist and reattached it to the piton.

  Radovan got up and walked over to his supplies. He rooted around the foodstuffs. Considering the lateness of the hour, he looked for something bland. He settled on a package of kavameal, emptied it into a bowl, and added water. He found a spoon and mixed the traditional breakfast staple, then carried it back to the second tent. Dropping to his knees once more, he leaned inside and handed it to the girl.

  She took the bowl and peered into it. She picked up the spoon and dug around in its contents. Then she lifted the bowl to her face and sniffed at it.

  “It’s kavameal,” Radovan said. “It’s good for you.”

  The girl made a face, clearly not enthralled with what he’d elected to feed her. “It looks yucky,” she said. She plopped the bowl down in front of her. Some of the kavameal slopped over the side.

  Anger flared in Radovan. He heaved the top of his body into the tent, landing on his hands. He snatched the bowl and flung it backward, out onto the ground, some of the wet, pulpy kavameal spilling onto his arm. He raised his hand and felt it curl into a fist.

  From where she sat atop her sleeping mat, the girl didn’t flinch away, but simply looked up at Radovan. Her peaceful, unfazed countenance disarmed him. He suddenly felt foolish for threatening to strike a young child. He lowered his hand and sat back on his thighs.

  She’s not just a child, Radovan reminded himself. She’s the Avatar. The girl impressed him. He could see in her what the Ohalu texts described: a special individual, whose life would be the price for an age of peace for the people of Bajor.

  “You have to take me home,” the girl said. She spoke with more confidence, with more of a commanding tone, than should have been possible for a human yet to reach her fourth birthday.

  “Even if I wanted to take you home, I can’t,” Radovan told the girl. “I sent the travel pod away, and I have no comm equipment to contact anybody.” He realized that he had essentially just told the girl not only that she would never leave the Talveran Forest alive, but that neither would he. Though he supposed he had known that for some time, it was the first time he’d admitted it to himself. He thought that perhaps the idea should have scared him; instead, he felt relieved.

  “They know who you are,” the girl said. “They’re looking for you . . . for us.” The pronouncements spoke again to the strangeness of the Avatar. Her words sounded convincingly certain, whether she intended them as a bluff—a tactic that seemed far too adult for such a young girl—or she truly believed what she said.

  Radovan gazed down at the bright circle generated by his wrist beacon. He lifted his hand and turned it around, shining the light on his own face from below. He glared back at the girl, though he could no longer see her. “Let them search,” he told her.

  Radovan backed out of the tent and returned to his supplies. He located the medkit and the ampoules he’d brought with him. He hadn’t replicated all of the drugs for Rebecca—and, as it had turned out, for Winser Ellevet. He also produced some to administer to himself, if necessary—to help him sleep and, more important, to spur an active dream state. At that moment, he felt exhausted, not just from everything that had taken place in the past twenty-six hours, but because he craved to know what to do next—or if not precisely what to do, then how to do it.

  When he found the right ampoule, Radovan inserted it into the hypospray, then returned to his own tent. He switched off the beacon and removed it from his wrist. He then lay down on his back, held the hypo to his shoulder, and injected himself.

  Radovan felt himself immediately grow calmer, knowing that sleep would soon take him, and that the dreams he needed would not be far behind. He closed his eyes, but before he drifted off, he called out to the girl. “Let them search,” he said again. “By the time they find us, it will be too late.”

  Soon after, he fell asleep. And dreamed. Of Endalla, of the Avatar, and of the explosive fire that would soon consume him and the girl.

  • • •

  Inside the small operators’ lounge, Tey brushed her hand across her mouth and chin, affecting a gesture of deep contemplation, but in reality covering her effort to stifle a yawn. The young man seated on the other side of the table did not bore her, but the day had grown long and she would need to sleep soon. She didn’t want to—she would have preferred to continue her efforts to find Rebecca Sisko and her kidnapper—but she knew her mind and body well, and she had no illusions about her limitations. She had been awake for more than twenty hours, and if she conducted her investigation much longer without rest, she would risk missing a relevant detail here or an important clue there. She relied first and foremost on her own abilities, but she also understood that nobody could work effectively around the clock, and that solving crimes typically required the efforts of more than a single person. Major Orisin and his team of Militia officers had so far ably demonstrated their professionalism and skills.

  When the man across the table finished describing his role at the Elanda District Three Transporter Terminal, Tey dropped her hand from in front of her mouth and asked him about his relationship with Radovan Tavus. Not yet thirty, Derish Koln exuded a naïveté that suggested he would be of little value to the investigation. Still, Tey believed in being thorough, not for its own sake, but because she knew that critical information could come from even the unlikeliest of sources.

  At that point, Tey felt certain that she had successfully identified Rebecca Sisko’s abductor in Radovan Tavus. A sensor expert would soon arrive at the man’s flat to search for Rebecca’s DNA, but the evidence that Tey, Orisin, and the other Militia officers had already found there only strengthened her belief. The unlawful modifications to Radovan’s home replicator, as well as the items produced with the enhanced device, supported her view, as did the discovery of a dead body stuffed into a closet, which indicated something far worse: a kidnapper willing to kill.

  Orisin’s staff had identified the lifeless woman as Winser Ellevet, a middle-aged records officer at the main city administration building in Johcat. They had yet to uncover her relationship with Radovan, and it remained unclear what role she had played in the abduction of Rebecca Sisko, or why she had been murdered. Although a full autopsy and toxicological assessment still had to be performed, the medical examiner, in part owing to the lack of any significant external damage to Winser’s body, had reached a preliminary conclusion of death either by overdose or by toxin. Radovan had replicated enough drugs in his home to have readily caused either outcome.

  While Orisin and his staff had started compiling a register of Radovan’s family members and friends, as well as a similar list for Winser, Tey had
beamed to Elanda. There, she began questioning Radovan’s colleagues at the public transporter in the city’s third district. Since the hour had passed midnight, Tey found only a handful of operators on duty at the terminal; interviews of the other personnel assigned there would have to take place at their homes. Derish marked Tey’s final conversation before she reported her findings to Orisin and headed home to sleep, while members of the major’s staff questioned the absent operators.

  “I wouldn’t say that I know Tavus particularly well,” Derish told her. “I mean, we often see each other coming or going, and we sometimes share a shift. We occasionally talk, mostly when we’re both on overnight, when traffic is at its lowest ebb.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “I don’t know,” Derish said, offering a halfhearted shrug. “Nothing particularly important. Honestly, Tavus mostly keeps to himself. He doesn’t say much, even when you do speak to him.”

  “Does he ever talk about serious issues?” Tey asked. “Things like politics or religion?” She tried to be circumspect in her questioning. She hadn’t categorized Radovan as a suspect, but simply as a person of interest, meaning that he could have been the victim of a crime, or a witness. Neither had she divulged the reason for her investigation.

  “Um, no, not that I can recall,” Derish said. “I might’ve heard him talking to somebody once about the Ohalavaru.” The young man spoke haltingly and with little confidence.

  “Do you remember what he said?” Tey asked. “Does he support them? Or oppose them?”

  Derish looked down at the table, where he nervously twirled a ring around a finger on his right hand. “Um, I can’t recall,” he eventually said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”