Star Trek - Pandora Principle

by Pandora Principle

  Carolyn Clowes - Star Trek - Pandora Principle

  Chapter One

  SOMEONE WAS SCREAMING.

  She hated that sound, hated this trap of strange weaving lights, this place of nowhere to hide. Beyond the light was darkness. no! She couldn't hide there. That was where It waited, where It searched and screamed for her. Because of her. Because of what she'd done-

  If only she could remember what that was.

  But the screaming was so loud she couldn't think. Hunger gnawed at her. Fear hammered in her brain. And a new pain-a tearing, racking pain she didn't understand. She huddled tight, curled inside herself, hugged her knees and held her breath to make the hurting go away. But that didn't help, and she tasted blood. Her own.

  If only that screaming would stop.

  Not move. Not now. Not ever make a sound. Make It never see me, make It never hear me, make It go away. but It was always there, waiting for her in the shadows, sharp, deadly as a blade.

  Then suddenly, It wasn't waiting anymore.

  Run! run, run, run.

  Pain. Ripping, cutting, sharper than the stones that slashed her feet. Icy sweat poured down her face, seeped and burned into her eyes, and made her cold. So very, very cold.

  Make It never hurt me! Make It never get me!.

  She ran down dreadful corridors of light, past curving walls of solid rock, along twisting narrow tunnels until the light was swallowed up and she saw nothing more at all. The terror owned her now, and she was running against the pain, running for her life, on and on into the deep and screaming dark. Not fast enough. Shouts, footsteps rang behind her getting closer, closer. And she remembered something then, a thing that drained her will away and turned her heart to ice: It would get her in the end, because she couldn't run forever, because this place was a trap. With no way out.

  She was going to die.

  On planet Thieurrull the nights were cold. By day twin suns broiled its surface, scorching and squeezing dry unfortunate life-forms that found no shelter. Relentless heat whited out the jagged mountain range against an orange sky and melted barren plains into a shimmer. Between the mountains and the waste lay the remains of what had once been a colony. Dust swirled in empty doorways. Slag heaps blackened in the suns, and servo-miners stood abandoned in craters gouged from the land. Heavy boots no longer tramped the burning clay. Rough, angry voices no longer cursed the choking dust. Harsh laughter and oaths and drunken shouts no longer echoed on the wind. The soldiers were gone. The workers and women and ships were gone. The food was gone.

  A world and its few remaining souls had been left to die.

  When darkness fell on derelict mine shafts and fissures in the parched ground, living creatures crawled or slithered to the surface hunting for the day's dead. If more than one scavenger happened upon a rotting carcass the fight was to the death; the deadliest survived. Battles fought and feeding done, they began the search again for safety and shelter from the planet's cruel dawn. Painfully, impossibly, life still clung to Hellguard.

  It had no moons. At night with only starshine burning through thin atmosphere, the rusts and umbers of searing daylight bled to shades of gray and black. The distant suns that blazed in the deep skies of Hellguard were fiery and cold, and they flung their terrible, taunting beauty across the endless curve of space.

  Far beyond the colony, out on the open plain, a circle of tents stood under the star-drenched sky. The wind swept around them, howling over the waste, and their lamps made a dusty ring floating in the dark. And in the shadows of the colony, unseen by those who brought this strange new light, a tiny flicker of it caught and burned in hollow, hungry eyes that watched the night.

  Spock sat by himself in the shadows that flickered against the walls of the main tent. Around the flame of a single lamp, twelve more Vulcans gathered, sat down together and waited. Somewhere outside a tent flap came loose and whipped and rattled in the wind. The recording device looked incongruous lying there on the mat-covered ground, a gleaming metallic piece of technology, out of time with lamplight, men in robes, and the keening wind that blew through this treacherous, alien night.

  Spock watched his father switch on the recorder. The only change in Sarek's composed, expressionless face came when the lamplight caught his eyes; for an instant they burned like flames. Then Sarek began to speak. And Spock was grateful for the shadows, grateful for the dark, grateful that his part in this was done. Tonight his elders met to testify to tragedy; he had only been a messenger, bearing news from beyond the grave.

  Vulcan's fleet had lost four ships in the past fifteen years: Criterion, Perceptor, Constant and Diversity, all science survey vessels, all Vulcan crews, all gone missing in space. One by one they simply vanished-the last, Diversity, six years ago. In every case transmissions were routine, from sectors bordering the Neutral Zone but within the Federation. Then silence. No signals, no log buoys, no debris. Nothing. Until three months ago.

  Enterprise was crossing Gamma Hydra sector, patrolling up the uneasy perimeter of the Romulan Neutral Zone, when the bridge heard a faint, frantic Mayday in obsolete Federation code. It originated from a Romulan cargo craft fleeing toward Federation space, with a warship of the Empire in pursuit and gaining. As Enterprise breached the Line and drew within transporter range, the warbird unleashed a bolt of fire enveloping its prey. The only occupant, a Vulcan woman, was beamed aboard unconscious and too badly burned to live. Spock reached her side in sickbay just before the end, touched gentle fingers to her charred face and joined her fading mind so she would not die alone. His log of the incident read "Explanation: None." But when Enterprise docked at starbase he requested leave and hired transport home to Vulcan.

  That all took precious time. Vulcan's Council took even more with private inquiries to the Empire and lengthy discussions of Federation law, which Vulcan was about to break. In the end the Federation was not informed. Symmetry carried no complement of weapons; Vulcan's survey vessels never did. Crossing the Neutral Zone and penetrating the sovereign space of the Romulan Star Empire were tasks better left to long-range sensors, secrecy, and speed. Even a starship, a Constitution or an Enterprise, would stand no chance in the Empire's front yard. A single ship of Vulcan registry would be doomed, but a single ship it had to be.

  For this mission flew only on the last thought of a dying Vulcan in the final mindtouch of her life, a thought that sent shock waves through Council and families alike: On an abandoned world called Hellguard-the fifth planet of 872 Trianguli-there were children, Vulcan children, dying on a burning rock in space.

  ". but no trace at all of our science ships or their small crews," Sarek said, speaking for the record. "Five hundred and fifty-six citizens of Vulcan, our sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, are lost to us. If they are alive," and the deafening thought of thirteen minds was a prayer that they were not, "they are beyond our reach. In memory I speak their names."

  The Empire had denied everything. No, it knew nothing of Vulcan ships! What evidence did Vulcan have to make such charges?. Children? How could there be children? It was biologically impossible; their scientists had said so; regrettable these ships had gone astray, but did Vulcan have some proof?.

  Now they had proof, living proof. And Vulcans would keep no more secrets tonight, at least not from each other. Sarek spoke the last of the names. Lamplight flickered in the dusk. Shadows danced up the walls of the tent; the air hung heavy, and time seemed to be standing still. The recorder went on blinking.

  "The remaining inhabitants range in approximate ages from five to fourteen. Life-scans confirm what we were told. They are indeed half Vulcan." He switched off the recorder to allow a moment of grief. Heads bowed in silence and in p
ain. There was no need to state what every Vulcan knew, no witness to reconstruct events. Only the shattering, irrefutable truth: a band of starving children who should not exist at all.

  Vulcan males and joined females are subject to a season as primitive and unrelenting as their planet's windswept sands. At other times mating (or not) is a matter of personal choice; but every seventh year it becomes a matter of life or death, a matter of being Vulcan. Pon Farr: eternal paradox of the Vulcan nature, its private pain, its illogical, secret soul. When their times approached, Vulcans would never choose to venture off-world in survey ships. Vulcans would never choose to mate far from home. And Vulcans would never choose to mate with Romulans. Somehow on this remote, decaying world, internal chemistries had been tampered with. Vulcan minds had been broken. The sacred personal cycles had been disturbed.

  Vulcans had been raped.

  Sarek lifted his head and reached for the recorder once more. The flames in his eyes came not entirely from the lamplight, and his quiet voice filled the tent like a tolling bell-or a peal of distant, dangerous thunder. "I conclude the statement of fact. Now Salok will speak of the survivors and what is to be done."

  Salok was old even by Vulcan reckoning, a healer with a very special skill: he was extraordinary with children. When Salok told them not to be afraid they weren't. When Salok told them that it wouldn't hurt it didn't. And whatever else he said, they neither questioned nor explained. Salok always healed them, and he always understood. But not tonight. Tonight he looked worn and frail. His hands trembled. His eyes clouded. Here were things he did not understand and had never encountered before. He mourned with Vulcan for the lost, but the pain he felt was for the found.

  "As Sarek has spoken," he began, "we meet to consider the children. Spock's information was correct: they were left here to die. Many have. Survivors hide in the empty buildings and rubble of the abandoned colony. It is a vicious life, a wonder that they live at all. Malnutrition is their immediate problem, but not the most serious. That is their minds, their savagery and ignorance. I observed no system of values, not even a primitive code of behavior. They kill without thought or regret over a morsel of food. They even kill each other-the youngest, weakest ones. The bodies," his voice became carefully remote, "are used for food."

  Thirteen pairs of eyes closed briefly. Vulcans killed no living creature for food, and cannibalism was beyond their imagining.

  "This planet is dying. We cannot help them here. I suggest our research station at Gamma Eri, a protected environment where they can be healed and taught. I shall go with them, and we must send them our finest, our most adept physicians and teachers. When the children have attained some measure of civilization and rational thought, they can be relocated on worlds for which their progress and their gifts are best suited. This will take. a very long time." He paused, exhausted. Consenting silence, nodding heads, and a vast unspoken relief answered his words. "Then it shall be done. Tomorrow the ship returns. At dawn we must begin the-"

  "I ask forgiveness." Spock was standing, hands clasped behind his back. "I regret that I cannot concur."

  Heads turned. Spock felt the disapproval at his impertinence; it could not be helped. He took a deep breath and went on.

  "Someday these children will seek to know their origins, their identities, their places in the Universe. Gamma Eri is an orbital science station, not a world, not a home-"

  "We save their lives, Spock!" The thunder in Sarek's voice was not so distant. "We seek to repair their minds. What more would you have us do?"

  "Treat them as we would our own," Spock said quietly, "for in fact they are. To uproot them from their birthworld as we must, to tend them on a station that does not even orbit Vulcan's sun, to instill in them a 'measure' of Vulcan thought and then to send them on their way-is that the sum of our debt to those we named tonight? These are their children. They deserve a home."

  Sarek's face was stone. The others averted their gaze, allowing a father to deal with his wayward son, who was behaving so incorrectly. "These children, Spock," Sarek explained, "are the products of coercion. Rape. Living reminders of Vulcan nature torn apart and shamed. Our kindred were violated. They did not choose their fate."

  "Nor did their children." Spock looked at his father across the tent, across a lifetime. "Our world is their birthright. It is for them to decide what measure of Vulcan shall be theirs."

  "Now, now, Spock," old Salok intervened, "we mean to help them, and we will. We do not blame them for the poverty of their natures, but we must recognize it. Adapting to life on Vulcan would be painful and difficult-for them, as well as for us. We must seek to do the greatest good for the greatest number."

  "Forgive me, Salok, but that equation fails to balance when the greatest good is merely the avoidance of difficulty, and when it is purchased at the expense of a helpless few. We say we value diversity in its infinite combinations. Are we to abandon that principle simply because it becomes inconvenient?"

  "Do not presume to speak to us of our principles, Spock!" Sarek's voice cut like a knife through the shocked, uncomfortable gathering. "This decision was never yours to make. It is not now. Your. dissent. has been noted."

  Spock regretted it had come to this. "I am constrained to point out," he said into the chilly silence, "that the Federation Council would agree with my concern. A homeworld is considered mandatory for displaced populations, and displaced populations are a matter for the Federation."

  Simple blackmail. They all stared at him in disbelief; Sarek closed his eyes in shame.

  "You would speak to outworlders of this?" S'tvan, philosopher and physicist, was on his feet, his voice unsteady with the effort at control; his only daughter and his youngest son had been aboard the Constant. "You would threaten disclosure? Public humiliation? How dare you! This is not a Federation matter-this is a Vulcan problem! We will care for these half-breeds in our own way!"

  Spock let that pass. "I am an officer of Starfleet, S'tvan, sworn to uphold a Federation law that Vulcan itself helped to draft. Violation of the Treaty on this mission would result only in our own deaths, since we come unarmed, and the loss of yet another ship. We do not provoke war, so my silence, like my life and my commission, was my own. But now we speak of others. I could not keep silent. They are children-and they are Vulcans."

  "They are not!" Sickened, S'tvan sat down again, and one by one the others turned away. Spock thought he saw a glimmer of respect in the old healer's eyes, but then he stood alone.

  "You are dismissed from our proceedings, Spock!" said Sarek.

  Spock nodded. It was just as well; the thing was done. He picked up his tricorder and walked to the tent's only exit. As he unfastened the flap, his father spoke sadly at his shoulder.

  "You would betray all of Vulcan, Spock?"

  "If I must." The tent flap caught in the wind, tugged at his hand. "I did not believe it would be required. Or that all of Vulcan would be so fragile."

  "Before you do, Spock, consider this: You did not speak from logic here. Perhaps your human nature betrays you. once again."

  "Perhaps. It sometimes does. I am what I am, Father." Spock let go of the flap and stepped outside. When he turned to fasten it behind him, he found it was already closed.

  He left the circle of the camp and walked out on the plain, so absorbed in thought that he was unaware of a shadow, not his own, moving after him in the dark.

  What happened in the tent came as no surprise, even Sarek's reminder of his human failings. Spock hardly needed reminding.

  Only months ago he had knelt upon the plain of Gol to leave behind the things of Earth, to belong at last to Vulcan in the peace and freedom of Kolinahr. But the Time of Truth was not within his reach. And his teacher watched him fail. Your answer lies elsewhere, Spock. not on Vulcan. Spock walked away from Gol that day, knowing that he would never be free, knowing that some things could not be left behind.

  Now he stood on another plain, watched the skies, and knew his father was c
orrect: his human nature did betray him, then and now. But he'd known all that before. It changed nothing. Tonight he spoke because of what he was, because of what he'd seen.

  Spock had seen their faces. Darting, fearful, wasting faces. Starving bones and starving minds. Dull, empty eyes that held no promise, that watched and waited for the dark. Half-children and half-dead, half-animal. and half Vulcan. He walked upon their world well-fed, nourished by millennia of civilization, by blessings and aspirations, by all it meant to be a Vulcan. And except for a fortunate circumstance of birth, any one of those savage, starving creatures might as easily have been himself.

  No, he could not keep silent. I do what I must, he thought, but the children's fate is not the only question here.

  There were far too many questions here. He must find answers, or other ships and other lives might never see their homes. If it happened to Vulcans, it could happen to anyone.

  But why had it happened at all?

  Spock turned his back against the wind, set his tricorder on the ground, and shielded it from blowing dust as he monitored its readings. They confirmed his earlier data and told him nothing new: seismic instability. Recurrent planetquakes would have made mining too hazardous, which could account for the Romulans' departure, but so could many things on this inhospitable world.