Why had they been here in the first place? And what had they been mining? He'd found no resources of scientific or military value. At the excavation sites his scans showed only common iron ores: hematite, pyrite, a few more useful minerals that could be mined anywhere else with far less trouble. Investigations of two mine shafts revealed both blocked by cave-ins; the expedition had no time to explore further. But Spock knew he must.
Because neither Symmetry's instruments nor their own surface scans could penetrate the damping field emanating from those rocky cliffs. A natural phenomenon? Or something of value buried there? That might explain the mining colony; it did not account for missing Vulcan ships. If there were answers here they lay beneath those mountains, and he had until dawn to find them.
As Spock reached for his tricorder he felt a pricking at the edges of his mind-and at the back of his neck. A new awareness intruded on his thoughts, sent a warning ripple down his spine.
He was not alone. Something was watching him.
With every appearance of unconcern he keyed the bioscan, rose to his feet and began a sweep of the horizon. Halfway around, it registered. Life-form: small, Vulcanoid; distance: 30.2 meters-between himself and the camp. He stared into the windy dark, saw no one, then continued scanning and considered what to do. He perceived no danger, no hostile intent, only the palpable sensation of being observed. So this watcher was allowing him to study and to think undisturbed. For the moment he decided to do likewise. Shouldering his tricorder he set out across the plain and did not glance back. He knew he was being followed.
A long-ago rockfall from the mountains created a natural barrier, partially separating the colony from the plains. Spock should have gone around it. It yielded no new information, provided no shortcuts, and came to an impassable dead end. He retraced his path through the maze of boulders, and in sight of open ground again resigned himself to taking the longer-
A split instant's warning wasn't enough. The attacker dropped from the rocks above, slamming him down against jagged stone. The sickening crack he heard was the impact of his skull, and to Spock's profound annoyance the world began to fade. He fought to remain conscious, aware of his right arm pinned beneath him, his left arm flung back over the rock, and the glint of starlight on a sharp piece of scrap metal pressing into his throat.
A ferocious face with teeth bared in a snarl belonged to a young boy, a surprisingly strong young boy. Too late Spock knew he'd underestimated the danger here, but he'd been so certain-
The boy growled a warning, jammed a knee into his chest.
Spock's vision swam. His left hand seemed far away, but free; if he could distract this youth for a moment. the point of the metal jabbed into his flesh just below the angle of his jaw, and Spock felt blood trickle down his neck. Any movement at all would drive it deeper. A groping hand found his ration pack, ripped it from his belt. After some hurried scrabbling Spock heard it hit the ground. That ration pack was empty, and the grim purpose in the face looming closer was unmistakable. Spock knew then that there would be no distracting him. There was no more time.
Suddenly the boy jerked upward, stiffened. His mouth opened in a scream that never came. The light went out of his eyes, and he toppled backward to the ground, then lay still.
Spock pushed himself off the rocks to kneel beside the body, searching the shadows, steeling himself for another attack. None came. But if the boy was alone, what had killed him? The body lay sprawled on the ground, the mouth a silent scream, the eyes still open, staring up at a sky they would never see again. He had been young. Gently Spock closed the eyes and turned the body over.
Then he saw the knife.
It pierced the rib cage neatly on the lower right side, where the heart would be, if this half-Vulcan's anatomy were similar to his own. Someone out there was efficient-and so far, invisible.
He found his tricorder, shut it off, and tried to ignore the throbbing in his head. His mysterious watcher seemed to want him alive-or intended to kill him next. Then his ears caught the faintest of sounds: a pebble pinging against rock, scattering to the ground. Mindful of the risk, he sat down in a patch of dim starlight and waited. So did his silent sentinel. Just when he was ready to concede defeat, a shadow moved soundlessly from behind one rock to another. It moved again. Finally, from between large boulders, the shadow separated itself from the blackness. It crept toward him and stepped into the light. At last his elusive watcher stood revealed-and an eyebrow lifted in the dark.
Fascinating. It was a little girl.
She was starving. Naked, except for some rags tied about her waist, she was a walking skeleton. Every rib, every bone in her body stood out in stark relief, covered only by skin and layers of dirt. The child was filthy. Dark hair hung down her shoulders in shaggy, matted tangles. Sores blistered her feet and legs, and a lifetime of dust crusted between her fingers and toes. With wary eyes on Spock, she circled until the corpse was between them, jerked her knife free, then prodded and shoved to turn the body over. She seized his empty ration pack and searched it with a practiced hand. Never glancing at the boy's face, she pried the sliver of metal from his grasp, examined it and stuck it in the rags at her waist. Then holding her knife ready, she advanced.
Spock sat very still. A sudden feeling of disquiet grew as he watched her approach, and the reason for it was impossible.
She peered at him under her dusty snarls of hair with bright, hollow eyes. Intelligent, crafty, curious eyes. How old? he wondered. Nine? Ten? And how often has she killed? She stopped out of reach, leveled her knife at his face and sighted along its blade. They studied each other in silence. What was in Spock's mind simply could not be: it was absurd, but. he felt he knew her. Nonsense. He was obviously concussed and must alert himself to further symptoms. She sidled closer, inspecting him inch by inch. His face, hands, clothing and shoes were all gone over with acquisitive interest. Eyes lit on his tricorder. She pointed with her knife. Reluctantly, Spock pushed it toward her on the ground.
"What?" she hissed, displeased that it contained no food. Her language was Romulan, and Spock answered her in kind.
"It. tells me things," he said. Her eyes went wide. She snatched it up and held it to her ear, listening, then scowled.
"Tells!" she ordered, shaking it soundly. When it refused she bashed it with a bony fist. "Stupid sonabastard!" she swore, and flung it back to him. "You tells!"
"Certainly. What do you wish to know?"
"Stars!" She pointed up at them, and Spock stared. She spoke that word in Vulcan. When-and how-did she learn it?
"You know what they are?". and what else do you know?
She swept a scrawny arm across the sky. "My stars!" she said fiercely, aiming her knife at his heart lest he disagree.
"Yes, I see that." This encounter was becoming stranger by the minute, and Spock thought it wise to reassure her. "I mean you no harm. I go that way." He nodded to the mountains beyond. "If you wish you may-" A look of sheer terror crossed her face. She turned where he pointed, then whirled around in fury.
"Not!"
"But why? What about those-"
"Notnot!" She stamped her foot; eyes flashed, nostrils flared, and she brandished the knife for emphasis. She backed up to a rock in sight of the open plain, shoved the boy's piece of metal under it, and sat down to watch. The knife never wavered. With her free hand, she shook his empty ration pack and began picking crumbs out of the dust. The wind whistled around them, and she shivered in the cold.
Spock's head throbbed. He sought to identify that disturbing impression, which he could neither understand nor dispel: she still seemed familiar. Or reminded him of. whom? The Vulcan woman beamed aboard the Enterprise had been T'Pren, but T'Pren was on board Diversity, gone missing only six years ago. This child could not be T'Pren's daughter; she was far too old. No, he could not know her. yet he did. Explanations eluded him, and time was slipping away. When he tried to shift his legs into a more comfortable position, she menaced him with her knife.
"As you wish, but I must go now," he said, starting to rise.
"Not!" The knife sang past his face, missing him by inches, to lodge in a crevice in the rock beyond. She darted over, yanked it out-and hadn't missed at all. Something small wriggled on her blade: a species of rock-dweller about three inches long writhed on the sharp point that impaled it. She thrust it out by way of example. "Notgo!" she hissed, and seemed very firm about it.
Spock concluded that he was overmatched and might do well to keep it in mind. The child retreated to her rock and unstuck her prey, whose muscles went on twitching even after she sliced off the head, popped it into her mouth and began to chew. Resolutely he concentrated on the open plain where lights still burned in the Vulcans' tents, but he couldn't shut out the sounds of crunching bone and sharp teeth gnawing through tough, leathery skin. He felt quite ill. No doubt that blow to his head.
"You eats," she ordered him, holding out the last piece of meat. A precious gift indeed. but it ended in three claws, and dark blood dripped between grimy fingers onto the ground.
"No," he said, hoping she wouldn't insist. "It is yours."
Frowning, she crammed it into her mouth. Blood ran down her chin. She licked it away, licked all her fingers and bent over the drops of blood on the ground. She scraped them up with the dirt and ate that too; all the while, she guarded him relentlessly.
Spock looked up at the sky, trying to judge the hour by the movement of the stars. They burned near and bright and beautiful against a faint glimmer of the dawn. Dawn-no time to reach those mountains now. Out across the plain the Vulcans were emerging from their tents, beginning to break camp. Today would see the success or failure of their mission. Symmetry would be making its rescue run across the Zone-a calculated risk, marginally safer than remaining in orbit without defenses or a cloaking screen. But if it failed to elude patrols and never arrived at all, they would be stranded here, along with the children of Hellguard.
With a start he realized the child had moved so stealthily he never noticed. Now she stood at the far edge of the rock where he was sitting, watching him watch the stars. After a moment she climbed onto it and sat with him looking up at the sky, so intense and quiet that Spock felt he was witnessing some private ceremony. Her knife dangled forgotten in her hand.
"Stars," she whispered, her face solemn and expectant. She searched the sky as if she were waiting for something to happen-or trying to remember something. Where did she learn that word? Why did she save my life? And why, Spock questioned his own rationality again, why should this all seem so. important?
"I am going there," he murmured, "to see your stars. And you shall come with me." She stared at him transfixed, eyes huge and wondering. "My people come to take us there. They bring you food. You will eat. And then we go-"
"Not!" She scrambled off the rock and backed away, clutching the knife and ration pack in her hands, shaking her head in fear, looking from him to the approaching Vulcans and to the mountains behind her. Then she pointed at the sky. "Run!" she cried, and to Spock's utter consternation, she vanished into the dark.
The incident left him profoundly disturbed. Her last word was also Vulcan, meaning flee, run for one's life. Whatever his words meant to her, the attempt to win her trust had failed. But she was hungry; she would come with the others to be fed. Of course she would. If she didn't, her face would haunt him all his days.
He lifted the body and carried it out onto the plain, the body that so nearly was his own. He lived because this boy died, because an intelligent, dangerous child had saved his life for reasons known only to herself. Spock vowed under Hellguard's blazing stars that today he would return the favor. And he began to build a cairn of stones.
"The decision has been made, Spock. Do you wish to know?"
A bloodred dawn was rising in the sky, already hot and fading all but the brightest stars. The wind had died with the morning light, and dust swirled around the silent Vulcans as they went about their tasks. An open-sided shelter stood on poles in the center of the compound. Spock pried open crates of food, cakes of high-moisture nutrient specifically formulated and laced with sedative to make the children docile, calm their fears and ease the shock of their transport to the Symmetry. If it ever came.
"I do, Salok," he paused, grateful to the tired old man.
"I thought you might, as you were absent from our discussion. No doubt your scientific studies were more pressing."
Spock detected a gleam of humor in the old healer's eyes. So his confrontation in the tent, his embarrassing words, his abrupt departure from the gathering would be acknowledged in typical Vulcan fashion: they never happened. Beyond the colony the ragged mountains towered over them, stark and broken in a crimson dawn. He thought of ships and lives and the sudden terror on a small, hungry face. "My studies were of interest to me, Salok."
"I am gratified to hear it, Spock. And profitable?"
"Perhaps not, Salok, but only time will tell."
"Ah, time," said Salok, "time will tell us many things, Spock. Our meeting was of interest also." The light in his old eyes brightened. "Your elders think it best to offer the children places with their kindred families on Vulcan." Carefully, Spock betrayed no sign of relief. "It seems that to do otherwise would necessitate cumbersome discussions with the Federation, which would entail the outworlders' questions regarding our mating cycles, which we would then be obliged to answer. To say nothing of the questions, Spock, about our disregard for Federation law and the Interstellar Treaty with the Romulan Empire." Spock was well-aware of these consequences; he had relied on them. "But the children must agree. If they wish to identify their kin and declare themselves citizens of Vulcan, the medical procedure will be administered. The right to demand it will always be theirs."
"But they are only children, Salok. Surely-"
"As will be our laws and customs. They are not exempt. Their natures are untrained. It will be difficult-for everyone. Those incapable of understanding will be cared for-but not on Vulcan. We cannot make this choice for them, or for all the lives they will affect. Our decision is just, and it was not made lightly. This choice must be theirs, Spock, not yours or mine."
Vulcan justice: What was given would be earned, and what was earned would be given. These children must choose what every Vulcan child was born to-and would come to realize that their Vulcan kin wished they were never born at all.
"Their circumstances must be explained to them, Salok."
"I have no doubt that they will be," he murmured.
"Forgive me. I do not question your diligence."
"That is wise, Spock," Salok folded his paper-thin hands, "for it is not I who will do the explaining. Since you seem able to speak what passes for their language, the task is to be yours. That, you see, has also been decided."
Inwardly, Spock sighed; this was not precisely what he had in mind. It could not be said that he had an affinity with children. In their behalf he would risk his life gladly; in their presence he much preferred to be elsewhere. But he was in no position. "Then I shall make it clear to them, Salok. I understand."
"I am not certain that you do, Spock." The gleam in his eye showed signs of becoming a twinkle. "They must be cared for, you see, prevented from inflicting damage to the ship and to each other, or becoming a source of disruption on our voyage home."
"But," Spock frowned, "that would require. constant supervision, Salok. I regret that my duties on board-"
"Have been redefined."
"I see." What was earned would be given. There was a certain elegance to Vulcan justice, and it would be a long way home.
"After all, the children are why we came. You and I shall work together in this important undertaking."
"Then my duty becomes my honor, Salok."
"Perhaps. As with so many things, only time will tell."
Twin crescents of fire broke the horizon, and search parties began setting out. Exhausted as he was, Salok started after them.
"Ah, Salo
k, I think the ground here becomes rough underfoot. It might be best for the children if you remain to meet them."
"The ground is the ground. But for the children, I shall wait. And you need not be concerned about your duties, Spock. The old and the young are not so different, you see, when the ground becomes rough underfoot. In some ways, we all are much the same." Salok could take the sting out of anything. Even Vulcan justice.
The search teams moved in twos and threes with scanners and translators in hand, seeking out hiding places, stopping to speak softly. The suns climbed in the sky. The rocks, the ground, the air shimmered in the sweltering heat. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and every movement raised the dust. It tainted the air, burned their eyes and throats, and hung about them in a sulfurous cloud as they walked among the ruins of the colony.
Star Trek - Pandora Principle Page 2
