Stared up into Atal’s eyes.
Knew it was over.
And then the first tentacle shot from the ink-dark water and slapped against the Cardassian.
Atal screamed.
Kirk gasped for breath, thought of small circles of teeth, arranged like an octopus’s suckers.
Atal screamed again as a second tentacle flashed out of the opening, and wrapped around his legs.
The disruptor fired wildly, slicing across the roof of the cavern, setting loose an explosive trail of falling rocks. Then the weapon dropped from Atal’s flailing hand, bounced once, and fell into the water.
Picard scrambled back from the edge of the opening to join Kirk. “Jim, what is that creature?”
“That’s what caught you,” Kirk wheezed.
Three long tentacles completely encircled Atal now, his mouth opening and shutting in wordless agony.
“B’ath b’Etel,” Kirk gasped. “The Guardian of Lost Orbs…seeking atonement.”
Atal caught Kirk’s eye. He whispered Kirk’s name, begging for help.
But before Kirk could even have begun to respond, the tentacles had started to constrict, pulling Atal backward into the opening.
He slid from view. A moment later, there was a splash. A moment after that, total silence.
A murderer had been brought to justice.
And had left Kirk and Picard trapped beneath the Inland Sea.
Chapter Thirty
BAJOR, STARDATE 55598.4
THE SHOCK OF THE exploded rebreather still resonated within Kirk’s back and chest. With slow and careful movements, he disconnected the harness of the ruined pod, and let it fall to the stone floor of the cavern. Both he and Picard had taken up a position well back from the opening from which the rayl fish had snared Atal.
Picard shivered as he regarded the smoking device. “Is this when you tell me there’s no way back to the surface without a rebreather?”
Kirk nodded, rotated his aching shoulders. “The good news is the diving platform’s anchored overhead. When the Enterprise arrives, her sensors can find us.”
“More than a day from now,” Picard said. His expression said more to Kirk than his words.
“A little over a day,” Kirk confirmed. “We’ll be cold and hungry, but we can make it.”
“Perhaps you can distract us by telling me the rest of what happened in the Mandylion Rift.”
Kirk shrugged. “All that matters about what happened there, is that I lost.” Kirk closed his eyes for a moment, lost in a memory. “But…that’s when I learned how to win.”
Whatever happened, you told me the contest is still going on. So how can you be sure you lost?”
“A crewman died, Jean-Luc. My first crewman.”
Picard nodded. He understood.
“And for the contest,” Kirk said, “there was a winner. Someone we never even knew was there. Never even figured it out until a board of inquiry, years later, and Starfleet put it all together.”
“But the winner got the ship?”
Kirk shook his head. “Presumably. Though there’s never been any indication of that technology being used since. That’s what makes me think the contest is still going on. Somewhere.”
“But where?”
“You know, I think I’m tired of looking into the past.” Kirk smiled at Picard’s disappointed frown. “All right. For you, I’ll make an—”
Rocks groaned overhead. Both men looked up.
Kirk saw the line that Atal’s disruptor had sliced across the cavern ceiling, cutting through the glowing patches on the rock.
Water had begun trickling down from the cut line. Now a few small rocks fell.
“Then again,” Picard said, “we might not have a day.”
Kirk rapidly scanned the rest of the cavern, searching for another exit above the water line, or materials that could be scavenged from the tiers of benches and used to shore up the weakening ceiling. He saw nothing. “There’s no other place we can go,” he said, hating the finality of those words.
But Picard did not seem disheartened, even as the sound of the falling water grew louder. “Maybe not. Over there.” He pointed to the large stone carved with the symbol of the World and Temple and the Light, started for it. “Bring the beacons.”
Kirk hobbled back to what remained of their diving gear, collected the beacons, then turned to rejoin Picard whom he could see was already running his hands over the sides of the stone. Kirk was encouraged. His friend was definitely looking for something specific. He picked up his pace, despite his knee.
And just as he passed the opening through which the rayl had struck, there was another loud splash.
Picard immediately turned away from the stone. Kirk froze in position. Peered down into the opening.
And saw Atal drift across the water, pushed by two tentacles, to make contact with a soft gray mass that floated at the water’s edge, already sticking to the rock wall.
Kirk watched, fascinated, horrified, as the tentacles prodded Atal’s body into position.
Then two more tentacles broke the surface to exude more of the gray mass, the dense foam bubbling from small, round mouths ringed with fangs. The other tentacles scooped the foam and patted it into place around Atal.
“Jim!” Picard whispered loudly. “Get out of there!”
But Kirk waved his friend off. He wanted—needed—to understand what he was seeing.
Atal was being placed in position exactly as Picard had been, back to the wall, half in the water, chest and head in the air.
Yet there was no question that Atal was dead.
Though Picard, who had been dragged deeper by the beast, and held longer, hadn’t died.
Kirk wanted to know—had to know—why.
He blinked as the dark water of the opening seemed to rise up, then realized that he was looking at the rayl’s main body, an armored carapace, as it broke the surface.
The rayl rolled slowly, revealing a mottled purple-gray skin, sleek, slippery, laced by lines of raised nodules.
And then Kirk saw the creature’s eye.
The size of a man’s hand.
A wide circular ring of yellow iris in a space-black hemisphere.
Tracking him.
“Jim!”
Kirk couldn’t respond.
That eye…
And then the creature was gone, leaving Atal’s limp body bobbing on the surface of the water, fixed to its funeral wall.
Kirk shook his head as if waking up. He limped on to join Picard.
“It didn’t kill you,” Kirk said. “B’ath b’Etel killed Atal, but not you.”
Picard didn’t understand what Kirk was saying. Instead, he pointed to a section of the tall carved stone. “Jim, look at this. With a beacon.”
Kirk was sure he had discovered something of significance about the creature, but he wasn’t sure what or even how to proceed further with a theory of why it behaved as it did, so he put the unformed thought aside for later, turned on the beacon, aimed it where Picard pointed.
In the bright light, he saw a small square stone inset within blank rock.
“It’s a pressure switch,” Picard said. “I’m sure of it. Connected to a counterweight system behind this wall.”
Just then, both men flinched as a whistle of air alerted them to the collapse of a large section of the ceiling. The stone slab shattered on the rocky floor in the center of the cavern, and the impact was followed by another gushing spray of seawater.
“A pressure switch for what?” Kirk asked as they both looked up warily, to see if the rest of the ceiling would soon be upon them.
“Modern Bajoran temples always have a separate room, set aside for the use of the Prophets, should they ever walk among the people.”
Kirk caught the idea. “Like setting a place for Elijah at Passover.”
Picard nodded. “Similar traditions exist on dozens of worlds. One never knows when the gods will choose to walk among us.”
Kirk followed Picard’s reasoning to its next step. “So this separate room…you think it’ll be watertight?”
“It might even have a separate entrance—a way out.”
“Then why haven’t you opened it?” Kirk started to ask. But he answered the question for himself. “Because it might already be flooded.”
Picard looked serious, but ready for action. “That is the risk we’ll have to balance against what we’re already facing.”
More rocks began to fall from the ceiling. Water now sprayed from all directions. Their decision was upon them.
“In a situation like this, even Spock would have to agree that the concept of degrees of risk is illogical,” Kirk said.
More rocks. More spray. Kirk looked at Picard as the sound of falling, pounding water grew louder. If Picard did not act now, then he would.
“I always did like Spock,” Picard said and pushed the stone.
Over the thunder of the falling water, something clicked.
Kirk and Picard stepped back as the tall carved stone began to move, swinging open on a pivot bearing like a door.
Kirk and Picard moved out of its way to look at what lay behind it.
Their first question was answered at once: No water gushed forth. The room beyond wasn’t flooded.
Kirk directed his beacon deep into the darkness and found the answer to their second question.
There was no room behind the stone.
Only an alcove. And a small one at that.
“Oh, my…” Picard sounded breathless.
“It’s not that bad,” Kirk said. He tipped his head back and stared up at the cavern ceiling. “Even when the cavern’s completely flooded, there’ll be air pockets caught up there. We can float for a while. We can—” He stopped, looked back down, as Picard grabbed his beacon and swung its beam around the alcove.
The light revealed a carved shelf, and on it, a small, four-walled cabinet with gently convex sides, dull gold in color, less than a meter high, a half meter wide.
“Do you know what that is?” Picard said with wonder.
Kirk waited for his friend’s explanation. Picard might call himself an amateur archaeologist, but his knowledge was encyclopedic.
Picard approached the shelf in the rock wall with reverence. “It’s a Tear of the Prophets, Jim. An Orb.”
Kirk stayed back, behind Picard. “I thought they were shaped like an hourglass. I thought they glowed and floated.”
Picard looked back at Kirk, and Kirk couldn’t remember ever seeing so profound an emotion of joy on his friend before. “Oh, they are. And they do. Once they’re taken from their ark.”
Picard reached out to lightly stroke the cabinet, his touch tentative, exploring. “Jim…it’s warm…” He placed his fingers along the bottom edges, shifted it by a centimeter. “There is something in it…”
Picard fell silent, stepped back, as if transfixed.
Kirk had no difficulty knowing what his friend was thinking.
“We can’t open it, can we?”
“We could…” Picard said slowly.
“But we shouldn’t,” Kirk concluded.
“You’re right. We shouldn’t.” Picard turned to Kirk. “But when this is found, and the vedeks take possession of it with the proper rituals and ceremonies, it will be a great day for Bajor.” He looked back at the ark, wistful. “A new Orb…”
“They’ll find it,” Kirk said. “The Enterprise. When they search for—” He took a breath, forced himself to say it. “—when they search for our bodies down here.”
“Very likely,” Picard agreed.
The temperature in the cavern was dropping as more water poured in. The din was increasing with the falling rock, the hissing spumes of water spray.
“Do you think that’s right?” Kirk asked loudly to be heard by Picard, as he forced his thoughts from what appeared to be inevitable for both of them. “Should it be found?” Perhaps there was still something of value they could do. For the future.
Picard gave him a questioning look.
“We’re not of Bajor,” Kirk said. “Maybe we weren’t supposed to find it.”
Picard’s expression grew even more puzzled. “You believe in the Prophets?”
“I believe in aliens,” Kirk said. “So it’s like your interpretation of the Prime Directive. Where do we draw the line between one and the other?”
Picard gestured to the dying cavern that enclosed—entombed—them. “I don’t think there’s anywhere we can hide it here. The sensor sweeps are sure to detect it.”
“But if we could hide it,” Kirk asked, “is that the right thing to do?”
Picard nodded. “If we could hide it, yes, it would be best for this to be a discovery for Bajorans…guided by the Prophets…or the worm-hole aliens.”
It was the right answer.
Kirk went to the ark, gingerly picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy, surprisingly light, as if something within it flickered in and out of existence.
“Jim?” Picard called out as Kirk staggered past him, heading back to the center of the cavern floor.
The slick rocky surface was awash with eddies of water now, like the deck of a foundering boat.
“Throwing it in the water won’t do any good,” Picard shouted. “The sensors will still detect it.”
“I don’t think so,” Kirk shouted back. “Not where it’s going.”
He stood by the opening in which Gul Atal’s body had been placed in storage. He held up the ark.
“B’ath b’Etel!” he called out, over the falling of the rocks, the roaring of the water, the mad cacophony of nature tearing a world apart. “Here it is!”
A chunk of stone slammed down beside him. He swayed, almost lost his balance as a few shards struck him.
But Picard was already beside him, one hand for the ark, one arm for Kirk.
The first tentacle appeared and slid over the edge of the cavern-floor opening.
“Jim,” Picard said in warning, “maybe we should put the ark down.”
Kirk shook his head. He was willing to gamble on his instinct. One more time.
“The creature didn’t kill you, Jean-Luc. Somehow, it kept you alive. Somehow, it knew.”
Then the rayl fish burst from the opening, its huge purple-gray carapace broad as an Earth elephant’s back, its mottled tentacles thick as swollen pythons slithering across the wet rock floor.
“Jim,” Picard asked as the creature slowly rotated in the opening, bringing an enormous black and yellow eye into sight, “are you sure?”
“I am,” Kirk said.
“Then so am I.”
The tentacles reached them, began moving up their legs.
Picard shuddered but held firm.
Braced by Picard, Kirk was alive to only two sensations in this moment.
The warmth of the ark he held in his hands.
The intelligence he saw in the creature’s eye.
In that alien orb, he stared into depths deeper than space, ages more distant than when humans had stood upright for the first time.
The soul of Bajor, he marveled. The pagh of the world.
The tentacles of the giant rayl fish, of the fallen brother, B’ath b’Etel, slipped over him, each one capable of tearing his flesh, each one able to lift him into the air, or hold him in the water.
But the tentacles moved on, over his arms, to his hands, to close around the ark.
As if by silent signal to each other, Kirk and Picard released the ark together.
It didn’t fall.
It had been received.
The tentacles withdrew, coiled around the ark to bear it away safe from contact with the stony ground, safe from contact with the falling rocks.
They slipped over the edge of the opening, and the ark was gone.
B’ath b’Etel’s eye blinked, and for a moment, it was a human eye, or so it seemed to Kirk. And then the rayl fish sank beneath the waters.
Picard stammered in amazement. “It…it kne
w what it was doing?”
“I wish I did,” Kirk said, even though he felt certain he had just done the right thing, whatever it was. But that was it.
Now he automatically assessed the possibilities for their last few minutes, to see if there would be any other unlikely miracles in this place. But a quick glance at the cavern ceiling only told him that the overpowering weight of the Inland Sea would soon collapse it. As for their treading water in any air pocket that might happen to form at the ceiling’s highest point, the water was too cold for anyone to survive for more than an hour. No matter how thick their thermal suits.
“I know I’ve been in worse situations,” Kirk said. “I just wish I could remember when.”
Picard suddenly looked inspired. “What if it wasn’t subdermal?” he said.
Kirk stared at him blankly.
Picard awkwardly splashed across the cavern floor to where Gul Atal’s Cardassian uniform was beginning to float away. He looked back at Kirk. “Jim! He had a second disruptor! What if he had more?”
Kirk limped after Picard, still not clear why his friend was so excited. “More disruptors?”
“No!” Picard said. “More equipment!” He tore at the uniform, lifting up the armored vest, feeling inside, tossing it to Kirk, then lifting the trousers and the—
“Jim!”
Picard held up Atal’s belt.
He plucked a Cardassian communicator from it.
He showed Kirk the glowing blue light in its center. “Automatic recall!” he shouted.
“Automatic recall to where?”
Picard held out his free hand. “Only one way to find out!”
Above them, the cavern ceiling screamed, then split in two!
A dark wall of water arced onto the tall carved stone, knocked it off its pivot bearing, then surged back toward Kirk and Picard.
Kirk grabbed Picard’s extended hand, saw Picard press a communicator control.
And just as the water engulfed them, the cavern dissolved into golden light.
Chapter Thirty-One
BAJOR, STARDATE 55598.6
THE PORTABLE CARDASSIAN combat transporter pad was in a small trench a kilometer from the main camp. The walls of the trench had been shorn up by disassembled shipping crates, some of them with Federation markings. The top of the trench was concealed by camouflage netting and dead vegetation. Survival supplies and a powerful Cardassian subspace radio transmitter were packed in stacked cargo containers. And Corrin Tal’s crumpled body lay to one side, where Atal had dragged it after beaming it from the cavern.
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