Star Trek: Enterprise - Surak's Soul

by J. M. Dillard

  He maintained silence, forcing himself to concentrate on the waiting survivors who needed their help; only Hoshi spoke, uttering a single plaintive remark.

  “I only hope there’s someone left for me to try to talk to.”

  No one replied—not even Phlox. The streets were still, quiet save for the sound of wind rustling through long leaves, and the cries of seabirds.

  The landing party soon reached their destination: a building with shimmering, nacreous walls [12] that coiled delicately skyward. Large windows overlooked the sea.

  “Like a nautilus shell,” Malcolm Reed said as he stared upward, his tone hushed and reverent in honor of the dead. His chiseled, somewhat hawkish features—so distinctly British, Archer decided—stood in profile against the cyan sky.

  Yet the building’s beauty belied the horror that waited inside. As Archer and his group entered, they were met by an eerie sight. In a large sun-filled room with a view of the sparkling beach, some sixty or seventy bronze-skinned people sat cross-legged on the padded floor—some fallen forward, faces pressed to the ground, others fallen back against the walls. All wore the same gentle, relaxed expression of the first casualty the away team had encountered.

  Hoshi failed to entirely surpress a gasp; even T’Pol’s eyes, behind her visor, flickered for an instant as she steadied herself to do a quick scan.

  “Survivors this way,” she said softly, pointing down a gleaming corridor.

  Phlox turned his broad body directly toward the sight, absorbing it fully. “A shame,” he said. “A peaceful people, able to build such a marvelous city ... and now, most of them gone.”

  Archer put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go find those survivors, Doctor.”

  Phlox turned, shaking his head as he moved alongside the captain. “You read of such things [13] happening in history, but you never wish to see such a thing yourself. ...”

  Reed remained altogether silent, keeping his pistol drawn.

  T’Pol led the way down the corridor; they passed several rooms, all of them filled with exotic-looking beds made of a shimmering gelatinous material that caught Archer’s eye, but there was no time left to stop and inspect them. Atop each one lay one, sometimes two, bodies; after a time, Archer stopped looking.

  A moment or two later, the Vulcan said, with the faintest hint of something suspiciously akin to excitement, “Survivor, Captain. This room ...”

  They entered; Archer moved aside so Phlox could attend to his patient at once. Eagerly, Hoshi moved beside the doctor, in case she was needed to communicate. The alien—this one, judging by her more delicate features and smaller size, female—was partially encased in a bed composed of a blue-green gelatinous substance suspended in the air.

  Phlox scanned the woman, then exchanged a knowing glance with T’Pol.

  “What?” Archer demanded of the two.

  Both paused, then Phlox spoke. “This woman has just died.”

  “Another survivor,” T’Pol added swiftly. “Approximately zero-point-one-seven kilometers down the corridor. ...”

  [14] Archer made his way into the hallway at a speed just shy of a full run; T’Pol outpaced him, leading the way as Reed, then Hoshi and Phlox followed. Two doors down, the Vulcan entered what appeared to be a large, fully equipped medical laboratory. Several suspended beds lay empty, but on the one nearest the entrance lay a patient—half covered by the body of another alien, who had apparently been standing over the bed when he was stricken.

  The bed itself was glowing, phosphorescent, slightly pulsating; Archer could feel the warmth it emanated as he helped Reed lift the body of the male off the smaller, prone patient.

  “Poor sod,” Reed murmured. “Probably died trying to save her.”

  As the Enterprise officers gently eased the male to the floor, Phlox leaned forward and ran a scanner over his chest. “Dead.” The doctor turned and swiftly made his way over to the reclining patient—a female. “But she’s alive!” His tone was one of pure triumph; as he ran his medical scanner over her, he reported, “But weakening with each second. Electrolyte readings differ from those found in the dead victims. ...” He opened his medical case and prepared an injection. As he administered it, the blue-green bed flickered, then began to brighten, shot through with glowing phosphorescent veins.

  “A nutrient bed,” Phlox murmured, while he [15] attended the woman. “Probably to counteract the weakness. I’ll wager it’s to help stabilize her electrolytes. ...” He trailed off, absorbed in his work.

  Archer, meantime, could not help noticing the expression on the male victim’s face; of all the dead the captain had seen, only this man’s countenance was not peaceful. Indeed, his features were contorted with what a human would call outrage, even—Am I reading my own cultural cues into this? Archer wondered—recognition, as if he had recognized the cause of his own death and been incensed by it.

  “Anyone else still with us?” Archer asked softly of T’Pol, who was busily scanning for readings.

  Her eyes narrowed. “No survivors in this building. But roughly zero-point-five-four kilometers northeast, there’s one fairly strong signal left.”

  “And the others?”

  Her gaze grew pointed. “There are no others, Captain. Not on this island. Not anymore.”

  You said there were eleven, Archer almost said, then realized the futility of challenging the accuracy of T’Pol’s reading. In the moments since they’d arrived on the island, nine of those survivors had died.

  He made a decision. “Stay with her,” he told Phlox, who was busily bent over the surviving female. “Reed, Hoshi, you come with us. T’Pol and I are going to go find the last survivor and bring [16] him back here; Hoshi, we might need your help communicating after all.”

  “Fascinating medical apparatus,” Phlox murmured, his gaze fixed on his patient, but Hoshi nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Despite the fact that they were in the midst of a city, T’Pol led the captain, Reed, and Hoshi into what seemed to be a livestock facility, where smooth-skinned quadrupeds, looking rather like overfed manatees on legs, lay motionless, perished in their separate stalls. Troughs of untouched grain and water lay in each pen. Overhead were storage lofts holding containers of what appeared to be feed.

  There was an endearing ugliness about the creatures, and the fact that the pens were clean and in fact padded for comfort made Archer somehow sadder than he’d been before. It was hard enough to witness the death of a sentient being, who was aware of his own mortality; but there was a special poignancy about the demise of a less intelligent creature who trusted others for its care. The image of his beagle, Porthos, flashed in Archers mind.

  A single glance at Hoshi’s heartbroken expression made Archer look away. Reed managed not to react, but his brow remained deeply furrowed, and one corner of his mouth was pulled taut with horrified pity.

  [17] “All recently deceased,” T’Pol said clinically, passing them with no more than a cursory glance.

  Archer hardened his attitude and followed the Vulcan closely, focusing on the task at hand. “So the plague—or whatever’s caused this—has affected their animals, too.”

  “With the exception of some of the smaller fauna,” T’Pol remarked—then came to an abrupt halt, lifting a hand for silence.

  Archer and Reed stopped behind her; Hoshi, last in line, bumped into them both.

  The two women heard the noise first—of course, given T’Pol’s acute Vulcan hearing and Hoshi’s amazing exolinguistic ears. Both looked upward, expectantly, at the same area in one of the lofts.

  Hoshi uttered a few tentative sounds in the aliens’ tongue, her voice a little higher-pitched than normal—whether from proper pronunciation or fear, Archer could not tell. A greeting, perhaps, or an offer to help.

  What happened next happened so quickly that for Archer, it all blurred together.

  An alien face—deep bronze, with round, luminous, living eyes—appeared overhead amid the stacks o
f feed containers. A male, given the size and bulk; the low-ceilinged loft forced him to crawl on hands and knees. He scrambled to the edge of the loft and looked down at the landing party.

  [18] Glowered, actually, but Archer’s observation was overwhelmed by the jubilant thought: Alive! He’s alive and strong enough to talk!

  And, indeed, the alien opened his lipless mouth and let go a sound. An unarticulated sound, more like a low growl that began deep in his broad chest and left his throat as a shriek ...

  ... As he came springing down, arms outstretched, one webbed, many-fingered hand grasping, its target Hoshi’s throat.

  The communications officer screamed as the alien leapt atop her, knocking her down hard—so hard that, despite the protection provided by her helmet, Archer could hear her skull thud.

  Weakened or not, the alien produced a small object—a utility knife, Archer thought—and lifted it upward with the clear intent of disconnecting the oxygen hose that fed from the body of the suit to Hoshi’s helmet.

  Archer had no way of knowing whether the knife could pierce the strong fiber of the hose, of knowing whether the alien could do her any serious harm. He responded out of pure instinct—drawing the phase pistol from his utility belt, putting his gloved finger on the trigger, aiming and preparing to fire.

  But before he could do so, another’s phase blast, painfully precise, caught and illumined the alien in the instant before he could bring down the blade.

  [19] He shuddered, hesitated in the air a half second, then fell heavily to one side, allowing the terrified Hoshi to scrabble backward, crablike, on her arms and legs.

  Archer and Reed reached Hoshi’s side at the same time; she sat up, grimaced, and rubbed the back of her skull—in vain, since her helmet kept her from any hands-on contact with the injured area. “I’m fine,” she told the captain ruefully. “I tried to say that we were here to help, but the alien ... he didn’t seem sane.” She looked up at the crouching Reed. “Thanks for stopping him.”

  “I didn’t shoot,” Reed admitted, awkwardly; he actually flushed. “I didn’t have time.”

  The three humans glanced over at the fallen man, then at T’Pol, who bent over him with her scanner. Her phase pistol was already reholstered, her air already that of the impassive scientist; yet there was the subtlest catch in her tone as she looked up at Archer and announced:

  “Dead, Captain. Given his weakened state, my stun blast killed him.”

  Two

  THE SILENCE on the shuttlepod ride back to the ship was palpable.

  The team had failed abysmally in its mission: The woman in Phlox’s care had died despite all of the doctor’s desperate ministrations; and every attempt by the quartet of Archer, Reed, T’Pol, and Hoshi to locate and rescue other survivors had ended in their discovering a recently deceased individual. Eventually, T’Pol’s scanner no longer registered any life-forms other than birds and insects. Standing beneath Kappa Xi II’s glorious bright sun, Archer had been forced to admit defeat. An entire civilization was dead, and nothing they had done had stopped it.

  The thought flashed in Archer’s mind: I’m sorry, Dad. We did what we could.

  [21] Phlox had begged for permission to bring two of the bodies aboard: those of the man and the woman who had been found together in the medical facility while the woman was still alive. Archer had reluctantly agreed, knowing Phlox would maintain them under the strictest quarantine. The landing party had waited while specially designed containers were beamed down, and Phlox followed careful procedures to place the bodies inside. The sealed containers would go through decontam along with everyone else. In addition, Phlox collected tissue and blood samples from other victims for comparison.

  Yet even if Phlox and his techs managed to solve the mystery of what had killed those on the island planet, Archer wondered what good it would serve—then mentally drew himself up short. His expression had become as grim as the doctor’s, as Hoshi’s.

  Giving in to guilt is as bad as feeling sorry for yourself. You couldn’t help. Leave it at that. But finding out what caused this tragedy might help others, including those on your own ship.

  “It’s not your fault, you know,” Hoshi said suddenly behind him, from the passenger’s seat; he half turned his head to glance back at her—and realized that Hoshi was speaking not to him but to T’Pol.

  “I do not understand,” the Vulcan replied evenly, without taking her eyes off the copilot [22] controls. Of the landing party, only T’Pol had maintained a neutral expression, and had not exuded a sense of dismalness.

  “That the man died back there. When you protected me.”

  “Ah.” T’Pol’s expression and tone were cool, uninflected. “You are referring to my shooting the alien and his subsequent death.”

  Archer had to admit to himself that he was surprised by the fact that it had been T’Pol, and not Reed, who had reacted more swiftly with the phase pistol. Of course, just because she’s a pacifist doesn’t mean she’s not a crack shot. Reed listened to the two women and averted his gaze, paying undue attention to the scene outside the craft; Archer assumed that the lieutenant was still somewhat embarrassed that he hadn’t been the one to react quickly.

  “Yes,” Hoshi said earnestly. “I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t your fault. You may have saved my life, and you had no way of knowing that a stun blast would kill him. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

  Archer felt for an instant like a self-absorbed heel. Here he’d been depressed about his own inability to help—yet how must the peaceable Vulcan feel, knowing that she was responsible for the death of one of the last survivors?

  T’Pol’s eyes flickered briefly; watching through the ports as Enterprise loomed closer, she [23] responded: “I still do not understand your need to assign or not assign fault. An event happened. It was simple cause and effect. I perceived the alien as attacking you, and responded by taking a particular action. I am incapable of, as you put it, ‘feeling bad’ about it.”

  Hoshi’s expression soured; she folded her arms over her chest and said shortly, “Fine. I just didn’t want you to feel guilty.”

  “Guilt is a human emotion,” T’Pol said, with something suspiciously like pride. So, thought Archer, it must be nice to live without any self-doubt. And here I’d been worried about her reaction to the alien’s death. ...

  “Fine,” Hoshi repeated, and said no more until they arrived at the ship.

  In the decontamination chamber aboard Enterprise, Malcolm Reed found himself presented with a situation straight from his fondest dreams.

  Stripped down to her underwear, the long-limbed T’Pol, proffered him a large jar of iridescent decontamination gel. “Lieutenant,” she said, in her cool, low voice, “if you would be so kind.”

  Reed only hoped he wasn’t staring. He’d done his best to maintain the ultimate decorum around all female members of Enterprise, for he was military first, and male second, and frowned on even the merest hint of fraternization.

  As for T’Pol, Reed had been reluctant to admit, [24] even to himself, his attraction to her. Only Trip Tucker knew, and then only because Reed had confessed his attraction during an incontrovertibly drunken moment.

  He’d always considered Vulcan women very attractive—the exotic upsweep of their ears, perhaps, or more likely the fact that they were unapproachable, untouchable, unknowable, taboo. ...

  But he had come to know T’Pol, at least, just a bit. She was everything a woman ought to be—graceful in her every movement, incredibly intelligent, courteous, refined, dignified ... Come to think of it, Reed told himself honestly, everything that I wish I could be all the time. Except female.

  And she was now standing in front of him waiting for Reed, to smear her back with the gel—after which, she would do the same for him.

  Nearby, Phlox was finishing up the captain’s back for him, while Hoshi sat patiently, already thoroughly coated.

  Reed kept his features composed in a serious near-scowl, and acc
epted the container of gel with a curt, professional nod. Phlox and the captain were busily talking, and Hoshi was listening to them; the distraction presented Reed and T’Pol with something close to a private moment.

  Reed had been somewhat concerned by two things—first, that he had been outgunned by T’Pol, since he was the tactical officer, after all. It [25] wasn’t easy for him to accept that, since he was a mere human, any Vulcan would always have a much faster reaction time, no matter how many years Reed spent practicing with his phase pistol. Yet he knew he had to accept such a fact with grace; there was enough human/Vulcan prejudice in the galaxy as it was, and he felt it his duty to try to overcome any such prejudice he found within himself.

  Thus, he felt it was important for him to maintain as friendly a relationship with T’Pol as possible—for the sake of human-Vulcan relations, he told himself quite seriously.

  Second, he was concerned about T’Pol’s own reaction to inadvertently killing the alien. Hoshi’s comments in the shuttlepod, followed by T’Pol’s more-than-usual stiff behavior afterward, made Reed worry that perhaps the Vulcan indeed felt guilt about the situation.

  And so, as T’Pol turned her back to him, and Reed smoothed the first bit of phosphorescent gel over the curve of her shoulder, he remarked, “Hoshi was right, you know.”

  “About what?” T’Pol’s tone appeared entirely flat, indifferent.

  “There was nothing you could have done about killing that alien. I mean, he was bound to die one way or another.”

  T’Pol did not respond. Reed slicked down the other shoulder, then began to move toward the [26] small of her back. She was really quite amazingly muscular, though she did not appear so—her muscles were firmer than a human males, yet her skin was so much softer. ...