When their mirth had subsided, Blue Water Dreamer took her hands in his, running his thumbs over the work-roughened surface with a tenderness that made her tremble.
“Sekaya, daughter of Kolopak,” he said quietly, “tell this man what offering would best please your father. This man,” he said, tapping his chest, “would ask for the hand of Kolopak’s only daughter in the way that most honors her tradition.”
She couldn’t breathe. She stared at him, and his face fell. He looked down, and suddenly she realized what he thought—that she was refusing him. No! Oh, no. Sekaya placed her hands on his cheeks and turned his face back up to hers, and his dark eyes brightened as he saw the joy in her face.
So she taught him the traditional chant of Asking, and told him that he needed to fashion a headdress for them both, and to bring the headdresses to Kolopak as evening fell the following night. And then she kissed him again. And again.
But Blue Water Dreamer did not come to Kolopak’s hut as he said he would.
Sekaya and Kolopak learned the next day that he had never returned from a second “Cardassian experiment.”
Chakotay’s skin erupted in gooseflesh. “You told me Blue Water Boy joined the Maquis,” he said. “That he died resisting the Cardassians.”
“After a fashion, he did,” Sekaya said. The pain was not fresh, yet grief sat plainly atop her beautiful, strong features. “He was the first to fall in this conflict. We considered him a warrior, dying for the cause as surely as his ancestors died with bullets in their chests, fighting to protect their lands. Blue Water Dreamer went to the Cardassians willingly, to keep the peace, to honor the land he loved. To buy a future…with me.”
She wiped at her eyes. “Damn. I thought I wouldn’t cry telling you this.”
“It’s all right, Sekky.” His own eyes were wet. He, too, had loved Blue Water Boy; the Lakota was the brother Chakotay had never had.
Sekaya pulled her long, thick hair to one side and parted the shiny black mass with her fingers. Chakotay could see a zigzag of raised pale flesh. He gasped softly.
“What—” And then he knew.
“We chose to keep the scars,” she said. “War wounds. Evidence of our victory over our oppressors. It was after Blue Water Dreamer’s death that Father joined with those who would rebel. We hosted Maquis on our world; kept them hidden; kept them safe. We committed acts of sabotage, but we chose not to take lives. We were not foolish enough for that. The Cardassian vengeance would be swift and terrible if they had a blood debt to repay.”
“Sekaya,” said Chakotay, softly, shaking his head, filled with a new sense of wonder and respect for his sister, “you amazing woman…why aren’t you dead?”
She laughed harshly, and inwardly Chakotay shrank from the sound.
“Once the war broke out…the Cardassians just left. I guess their resources were needed elsewhere. They never came back, but they had done enough damage. Sixteen people either died or disappeared because of their experiments, and several dozen were killed while they were with the Maquis.”
They were nearing the planet. Despite his keen desire to get a good look at the chamozi, Chakotay didn’t want to hurry their approach. His mind was reeling from all Sekaya had told him.
His people had not been left alone by the Cardassians. Far from it. They had been taken and experimented on like laboratory animals from the old days of Earth. They’d been murdered for their cooperation, and had risen to fight their oppressors as their ancestors had.
And Chakotay had known nothing of this. Nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, his voice harsh with pain.
“You were an outsider,” Sekaya said. She sounded tired, as if the telling of this tragic story had drained her. “We talked about it, Mother and I and some of the others, and decided that we wouldn’t lie to you about it. We just…wouldn’t share that part of our colony’s history with you.”
Anger blazed inside him, then subsided to an ember. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t been there, to suffer through it as she had, to know that a childhood friend—and in his sister’s case, a future husband—had been slain to satisfy the whims of a conquering people.
“Did you ever learn what they wanted? Why they performed the experiments?”
She shook her head. “No. Who knows, with the Cardassians? Maybe to implement new and improved torture devices. Maybe just to kill some time. But it is right that you knew, Chakotay. I know you’ve just been handed a big responsibility with Voyager, but even captains get to take shore leave now and then. Perhaps…perhaps you can come back home for a bit. I’ll show you the Cave of the Dead. Where we honored those who fell.” She swallowed and blinked quickly. “I made a special altar for Blue Water Dreamer.”
“I’d like that,” Chakotay said. He extended his hand, and she squeezed it and let it go.
“Now you know why I feel so close to Marius and his people,” she said. “I know a little something about the loss he’s feeling. And now, you do too.”
Chakotay cleared his throat. “We’re going to be landing soon,” he said. “And we can think about our tribe and its history in a brighter light when we try and figure out why that chamozi is down there.”
Sekaya nodded. “This sounds good. I have had enough of sorrows connected with our people, my brother. It’s about time we were able to share something positive.” Her eyes gleamed. “Let’s go see it.”
Chapter
21
“OUCH!” Ensign Walter Merriman hissed through his teeth at Kaz’s gentle probing. Even though Merriman had reported to sickbay immediately after his injury, his side was already beginning to bruise.
“Sorry,” Kaz apologized. “Well, you banged yourself up good, Ensign. Two broken ribs, a broken clavicle, and…are these bite marks? Good heavens, man, what were you doing on the holodeck?”
As soon as the words left his lips, he put two and two together and figured out exactly what Merriman had been doing on the holodeck.
The ensign’s face turned beet red. “Um, just a program,” he said.
Kaz smothered a grin. From the evidence in front of him, he was willing to bet that Merriman was running a program that involved Klingons—particularly Klingon females—and he’d relaxed the safety protocols. A lot.
“The safety protocols are there for a reason, Ensign,” Kaz remonstrated as he set about repairing the broken ribs. “You’d do well to adhere to them in the future.”
“Hey,” protested the burly Merriman, “a guy’s gotta work out his stress.”
“Certainly,” Kaz agreed mildly, encouraging Merriman to sit up. “I actively encourage vigorous and safe exercise. But stress is only increased if the, um, exercise climaxes, shall we say, in a visit to your friendly ship’s doctor.”
Kaz hadn’t realized that humans could turn quite that shade of scarlet. Merriman hastily got back into his uniform, murmured, “Thanks,” and left.
Abruptly, Kaz’s amusement evaporated. He’d just participated in a double standard, and one he didn’t like. Why did he find it amusing that Merriman had participated in a rough-and-tumble, slightly naughty, and perhaps sexual scenario on the holodeck, and yet was concerned about Akolo Tare? The obvious answer was that Tare hadn’t been a willing participant in the “program.” She’d been kidnapped, physically subdued and abducted in front of witnesses, and in all likelihood raped. If she’d programmed it that way, that would be one thing, but she had been assaulted against her will. And that could never be tolerated.
But what about the holograms in Merriman’s program? Granted, Klingons weren’t often assaulted against their will, but they certainly had no say in what they were programmed to do.
They’re much simpler programs, reason and logic argued. You don’t ask the computer if it’s feeling up to locating a crewman. You don’t ask your diagnostic tools if it’s okay for them to check a patient.
But I asked Data’s permission when we worked together, part of him stubbornly responde
d. I asked the Doctor.
He felt a slight pain in his temple. The inner dialogue was giving him a headache. He frowned; he really must be tense. He rose and went to the replicator, requesting a glass of water with lemon.
And see, you didn’t ask the replicator to very nicely get you a glass of water.
“Okay,” he said aloud, “enough of this.” He realized his hand was trembling as he drank the water.
Phaser fire, screaming through the night. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him. Finally, he saw her, spared somehow in the midst of the destruction that rained around him. Vallia’s Revenge. There were dozens of them already here and he breathed a quick gusty sigh of relief at the faces that turned to him. Javan, Kehl, Rakkial, M’Vor—beloved friends and their families who were behaving as good little Maquis children always did, their eyes huge with terror, but staying silent and obedient.
Staying alive.
With hands that were numb from clutching his phasers, Gradak entered the code. The door hissed open, and they flooded inside. He looked around, searching for more. It wasn’t hard; Maquis were everywhere, desperately crowding to get in ships, get off the moon that had once offered protection but now was a deathtrap….
Sudden, sharp pain brought Kaz back to the present. He stared at his hand. Bright shards of glass were covered with blood that slowly dripped down to the floor.
“Jarem.”
The voice was calm, but a thread of worry snaked through it. Kaz shook his head. The name was familiar—
Because it’s my name—
Memory rushed back to him, and he looked up to see Astall standing just inside the door. When she saw recognition in his gaze, she ran toward him, taking his injured hand gently in her long purple fingers. With as much care as he himself would have taken, she removed the glass shards and placed them on a tray, then reached for the autosuture. The lacerated flesh closed and the blood disappeared.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice shaking. If she hadn’t come in when she had—
“We were going to meet for lunch,” she replied calmly. “Now, tell me what happened.”
He licked dry lips. “I started to have a headache,” he said. “I was thinking about something and I went to get a drink of water. Then suddenly I was back in the dream, except this time it wasn’t a dream, because I wasn’t asleep.”
“A hallucination.”
Sickened by the term, knowing it was true, knowing what that would mean, Kaz nodded.
She looked up at him with deep sympathy, her ears drooping. “I’m so sorry, Jarem. But I’m afraid I have to officially remove you from duty.”
“No!” he cried. “There are steps we can take. Look, the mission’s almost over. Once we’re on our way back, I’ll remove myself from duty—”
He was frantic, babbling. This was his first mission aboard this starship, under the captain he so liked and admired, and he was cracking.
Astall looked at him searchingly. “What steps?” she asked.
He gave her a grateful look and squeezed the hand that held his. “There are two options,” he said. “One medical, one mental.”
“Go on.”
He released her hands and went quickly to the computer. Tapping the controls, he called up a visual.
“Isoboromine,” he said. “It’s an organic neurotransmitter that mediates synaptic functions between the host and the symbiont. If the isoboromine level is too low, the interphase between host and symbiont gets off-kilter. We could both die. I did a scan after we talked to Chakotay.” He looked up at her. “While I don’t want to admit defeat yet, I have no desire to endanger anyone on this crew.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I never thought you did, Jarem.”
He gave her a grateful smile and continued. “The scan showed that my isoboromine levels are below normal. I’m not sure why or how—whether the levels were depleted because of our attempt to bring Gradak forward, or if Gradak has been intruding so insistently because my isoboromine was low. It hasn’t approached dangerous levels yet. But after what just happened, I think I should do a second scan just to make sure. My point is, I can artificially control the levels of isoboromine. I can increase it.”
“And therefore have more control over the relationship between you and Gradak,” Astall said as she nodded her comprehension.
“Correct. I didn’t do anything to adjust the isoboromine levels earlier because we weren’t trying to avoid my connection with Gradak. We were trying to increase it; trying to bring him to the forefront.”
“But we can’t complete that right now,” Astall said. “So the best thing to do is minimize his influence over you. Do you think this treatment will be successful?”
“In theory, yes. But if it doesn’t work, I’m planning on pulling out the big guns.”
She cocked her head curiously. “And that would be?” He told her.
Chakotay set the shuttle down gently at the coordinates that Ellis had given them. Though the continent was in the northern hemisphere, the colony was located far enough south that there was a hint of the tropics. He breathed deeply of the rain-cleansed earth as he and Sekaya stepped out. His first officer was waiting there to greet them.
“Mmmm,” said Sekaya, breathing deeply as Chakotay had done. “This is a beautiful place. The holographic program didn’t quite capture it.”
“The markings are a short walk to the northwest, right over this hill,” said Ellis. He was clearly not in the mood to make polite comments about the environment. “It sounded like you knew what these symbols meant, sir. Did you recognize them? You mentioned something about…Sky Spirits?”
Chakotay looked up at the cloudless blue sky. Moisture still hung thickly in the air, glistened on the leaves of the plants. But the Sky Spirits had stopped their rainstorms. They must have wanted Ellis to find this symbol, wanted him to contact Chakotay. How they knew about him, Chakotay didn’t know, but with the Sky Spirit aliens, anything was a possibility.
“It looks exactly like an ancient symbol our people have used for thousands of years,” Sekaya explained as they strode over a grassy hill together. “It’s a blessing on the land. We call it a chamozi.”
“A few years ago, while we were lost in the Delta Quadrant,” Chakotay said, continuing the explanation Sekaya had begun, “Voyager came across the exact same symbol on a small moon. We discovered that there was an alien race who had visited Earth forty-five thousand years ago and who had genetically bonded with our ancestors. My tribe’s term for them was the Sky Spirits. Until that point, I had always thought it just a legend, a myth.”
“Our tribe has lots of legends,” Sekaya said.
“The Sky Spirits—the aliens—were afraid of us because they had visited Earth a few hundred years ago and seen what had become of humanity.”
“I hope you corrected their misconceptions about us,” said Ellis, almost primly.
“I did indeed. I was in a position to tell the aliens we’d evolved quite a bit. But I have to tell you, Ellis, I’m very curious to find a fresh marking here.”
“Perhaps some of the Sky Spirits have decided to come back to this quadrant and pay us another visit,” Sekaya suggested.
“Who knows?” Chakotay said, grinning at her. To Ellis, he said, “Changing the subject, where is the rest of the away team?”
“I had them fan out in pattern Beta Four Three Four,” said Ellis. “They’ll be meeting us at the colony site in a few minutes.”
They cleared the hill, and Chakotay got a good look at the stone bearing the chamozi. The stone itself was roughly circular, about three meters in circumference. On its red surface could clearly be seen the spiral and two dissecting lines. Despite his determination to be calm and detached, his heart sped up.
“This is amazing,” breathed Sekaya reverently. “What a blessing, not just for the land, but for us.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” said Chakotay. “I’m glad you’re here to see this, Sekaya.”
In silence, they descended the hill and stood regarding the stone. After a moment, Ellis cleared his throat, disrupting the mood of near reverence.
“I took some readings, Captain,” he said, “but I found nothing. Do you two want to examine the symbol while I try again?”
Ellis’s words sounded like so much prattle to Chakotay’s ears. All he wanted—all his sister wanted—was to get close to the chamozi. Both siblings were already stepping onto the stone’s surface as Ellis spoke.
“That sounds fine, Commander,” said Chakotay, hoping he didn’t sound as annoyed as he felt. He and Sekaya now stood before the symbol etched in chalk. Chakotay knelt, as did his sister.
“Oh, Chakotay. How I wish our father could see this,” said Sekaya, her hand pressed to her heart. Chakotay nodded. As one, as if they had planned it, the two children of Kolopak reached to touch the white chalk.
Light exploded around them. Chakotay cried out and arched his back in pain, then knew no more.
Chakotay awoke slowly. His head throbbed, and there was a strange dimness about his vision. His body ached and tingled. He blinked several times in an attempt to clear his gaze, slowly turning a head that felt as if it weighed a thousand kilos.
And stared at the body of Commander Andrew Ellis.
He tried to bolt upright, but slammed hard against the restraints he hadn’t even noticed were fastened securely around his body at wrists, chest, and ankles. His heart racing, he looked around wildly, trying to comprehend what he was seeing in his still fuzzy state.
The room was dark and it was difficult to see clearly, but Chakotay finally realized what he was looking at. A stasis chamber. Ellis was in a stasis chamber. Craning his neck, Chakotay looked around the small room.
Spirit Walk, Book One Page 19
