and flinched away, and in that instant the men were on her. A heavy weight
slammed into her and the disruptor was wrenched from her hand.
"Looks like the tables are turned, pretty lady," the big man crooned into
her face. She twisted her head, trying to avoid the fetid breath. He
laughed, and caught her by the back of the head in a viselike grip, forcing
her to stare up into his face. "Now let's see what little Kfingon girls are
made of."
Her words of protest became a cry of pain as his hand impacted on her cheek
with the sound of an axe striking deep into wood.A gray curtain seemed to
draw across her eyes, and her knees went weak. She slumped in the man's
arms and he laughed deep in his throat. His hand gripped the back of her
neck.
Kali forced back the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her, and began
to evaluate her situation. If she could just shift slightly to the left she
would be in a position to slam her knee into his testicles. She pretended
to relax in his arms, and was rewarded by a loosening of the hand that
gripped the back of her neck.
Her knee was just coming up when there was the distinctive whine of
disruptor fire, and her captor fell back with a bellow of agony. His sudden
move ruined her aim, but she was gratified to hear him yelp yet again as
her knee scraped across
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his groin. It wasn't a direct hit, but it probably didn't feel good, she
thought with some satisfaction.
The disruptor sizzled the air twice more, then it was over. The five men,
the four she had confronted and the fifth who had arrived late and flung
the rock, lay face down on the sand. One cradled a hand against his
shoulder, and her attacker was moaning and nursing a blackened hole in his
upper thigh.
Kor stood nonchalantly over the hunters, his disruptor dangling slackly in
one hand. Kali gave a cry of joy, and flung herself across the intervening
space. He caught her with his free arm and held her close, but he never
took his eyes off the humans, or allowed her to block his fine of fire.
"Kor, oh Kor, I'm so glad! How did you find me? Oh, I'm sorry, I was so
stupid."
He cocked an amused and indulgent eye at her, and kissed the top of her
head. "My darling, if you must be a heroine can't you at least bring enough
troops to make it successful?"
She looked embarrassed and hung her head, but after a moment she threw back
her head and gave - him a militant look. "I would have if you had provided
me with a landing party made up of something other than dithering fools."
"Oh ho, and when did it become your landing party?"
"When that idiot Quarag stood by and let these animals," she gestured
contemptuously at the cowering hunters, "kin the Singers."
"Do the humans know of this?"
"Of course, but they also do nothing."
"So you decided to act. Couldn't you have at least told me?" he asked
plaintively.
"I didn't want to give you something else to worry about."
"My dear one, you are amazing." He brushed the back of his hand down her
cheek, then looked back at the prisoners. 11 I'm going to spare you this
time, but I warn you I won't be so lenient when next we meet. Don't any of
you move a muscle for ten minutes." He fired a warning shot between one of
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men's legs and, taking Kali's hand, they hurried out of the camp.
"Why didn't you kill them?" she asked as they jogged down the beach.
"Because they are humans, and Kirk probably wouldn't like it if I started
killing Federation citizens."
"But they are killing the Taygetians!" Kali protested.
"I know that, and I will meet with Kirk and see what, if anything, should
be done." They slowed to a walk, and he gave her a curious look. "Why does
it matter so much? If the Empire claims this planet the Thygetians may be
an inconvenient presence that wiR have to be removed anyway."
"Nol" She stopped, and placed both hands against his chest. "You don't
understand, Kor, you haven't been here with them, listened to them, worked
with them. The Singers are beautiful, special. We must not harm them."
He looked down into her beautiful, distressed face, and took her hands in
his. "I've never seen you feel this strongly about anything before. What is
it about this world, these creatures?"
"I don't know. It is as if the beauty and harmony of the song has the power
to wind itself into your consciousness." She groped for the words, then
gave a defeated gesture. "I can't explain."
"Perhaps I ought to spend some time on the planet and see how these Singers
affect me."
"Please do, Kor, then you will see why we have to protect them."
"All right. But first we must see Kirk a nd decide what to do about our
aggressive friends back there. Tley aren't going to stop killing on our say
so, and after our little altercation they may decide to add Klingons to the
hunt."
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Chapter Eight
"I brought you some lunch," Uhura said to Maslin's hunched back. He didn't
respond. Instead his long, slender fingers continued to play across the
synthesizer's double keyboard. She moved to his side and tried again. "Guy,
I said--2'
"I heard you the first time," he said, not looking at her. His eyes were
locked on the long, narrow screen where two lines of indecipherable dots
and dashes marched monotonously past.
"You have to eat. Otherwise you're going to end up ill the sick bay, and be
of no use to any of us."
"Never mind all that. I'm finally on to something-"
"What?" she asked. She set aside the plate, both food and her concern over
Mashn forgotten in the excitement that they might at last be on the verge
of a breakthrough.
"Come on." He slid off the bench and, grabbing her hand, began pelting down
the beach. "If I'm right," he panted as they slogged through the deep sand,
"an entire group of
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Singers up there," he gestured at a section of the cliff face, "will drop
out of the song, and I want to be there when they do. 11
4"Why?"
"Because it finally started making sense."
"I'm glad it does for someone," she said with some acerbity.
"I'm sorry, I'm being cryptic. Remember when Chou and Donovan reported the
strange fish behavior?"
"Yes."
"Well, I went back and checked the recordings the synthesizer had made at
that time. I keep a recorder on at all times because I keep hoping that the
more passages the machine hears and compares the easier it will be to
decipher the language. Anyway, at approximately the time that Donovan and
Chou observed the fish the cubs began a very rigid and coherent song. It's
totally unlike their usual random hoots and tweets. Moments later a group
of voices in the adult song dropped out. Since then I've been watching for
it, and it happens with clockwork regularity every twelve hours."
"So what do you think it means?"
"I'v
e got a theory, but I'd like to see if I can find any evidence to
support it before I go out on a timb." He paused and stared up the cliff
face. "This ought to be just about the place. Feel like a climb?"
"I do, but how do you feel?" Uhura asked, studying his drawn face.
"I can make it. Just knowing I may finally be on to something is enough to
totally rejuvenate me."
She questioned that statement, but prudently kept her doubts to herself.
She didn't want to fight with Guy, and since she had begun to nag him about
rest and food, fighting seemed to have become their major form of
communication. She began searching the base of the cliff for a way up to
the grottos, and found a place where the rock had slipped and
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shifted, forming a series of natural steps and handholds. It wasn't going to
be an easy climb, but they wouldn't need special equipment.
She went fkst, carefully testing each foot- and handhold for stability. She
was glad Guy was small and light for there were several points where she
doubted that the rock would have held under a man of Spock's or Kirk's
weight. After fifteen minutes of steady climbing she reached the first
grotto. She gripped the lip of the ledge, and pulled herself up.
And found herself face-to-face with a Thygetian adult who lay placidly
feeding in the midst of a mound of fish. The blue green scales still
gleamed wetly, and sea water puddled about the bodies of the quivering
fish. She had become S6 accustomed to being ignored by the adults that she
was startled, and almost lost her grip on the ledge when the creature
stopped chewing and lifted its head to regard her out of deep blue eyes.
"Uhura, could you go up or come down, but please don't just stay there. My
arms are about to break."
She quickly boosted herself onto the ledge and, rolling over, reached back
for Guy. He accepted her hand, and she could feel his arm shivering with
strain as she helped him onto the ledge. His face was bone white except for
two hectic spots of col6r that burned high on his thin cheeks, and a spasm
of coughing seized him as he collapsed face down in the grotto. After a few
moments the spasm passed, and his breathing eased. The Ikygetian continued
to watch them until Guy pushed up into a sitting position, then it went
placidly back to its meal.
"Is this what you expected to find?" Uhura asked with a gesture to the
fish.
"Yes."
She sat back on her heels, and wrapped her arms around her knees,
thoughtfully watching the Thygetian. "Donovan's been going nuts trying to
figure out how the adults maintained themselves when they never left their
grottos."
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"And he really isn't going to be happy when he hears about this.99
"You must have some idea how this happens. After all, you made the
connection between the cubs' song and the fish."
"I have ideas, but none of them makes any sense. If only the great song
weren't so ragged. It's like trying to learn a language when only half the
words and none of the grammar are available. " He stared silently out at
the ocean for several minutes, then nodded. "But this is going to help. At
least now I have a direct action that flows out of a song. I'll just start
cross checking to see if any of the phrases and passages in this song
reoccur in others."
"Do you want to start back down?"
Mashn peered over the ledge and shivered. "We climbed that?" he said,
pointing down the cliff.
"'Fraid so. It did look easier coming up, didn't it?"
"Do you suppose if we sit here long enough the action of wind and weather
will lower this cliff by two or three hundred feet?"
Uhura chuckled and reached out for his hand. "We could always call the ship
and have them beam us back to camp."
"Maybe that's how the Taygetians get the fish up here, they have
transporters hidden beneath the crust of the planet."
"You've been reading too much fantasy. Our sensors would have picked up
that kind of activity."
"Must you always be so literal," he complained, sliding over to her, and
lying back with his head in her lap.
"It's in my job description," she said, softly running her fingers through
his heavy hair.
"What would it take to give you a new job description?"
"I don't know. How much clout do you have with Star Fleet?"
"Not near enough, I'm sure." He paused, and picked up her free hand,
twining her fingers through his. "So maybe we ought to find you a new
position outside of Star Fleet."
An aching lump seemed to settle into the pit of her
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The Tears of the Singers
stomach, and she cast wildly about for some way out of this situation. She
wasn't ready for this conversation. She had no idea what she felt or really
wanted, and she didn't want to be forced to make a choice. They had never
spoken of love, and her commitment to Star Fleet was so strong that it would
take a very powerful and driving need to pull her away from her chosen
career.
She wanted a ship and a command of her own, and she thought she had a good
chance of getting them--but it was going to cost. The price of a starship
was ceaseless devotion to work and career. She had seen it with Captain
Kirk. However much he might yearn there was only one lady in his life and
her name was Enterprise.
But do I want to become a lesbian? she thought rebelliously. Devoting my
life to a mass of circuits and metal that by some ironic quirk of
phraseology has been designated a she?
Or did she want the comfort of home, husband and children? And was it
possible she could have both? Or was that a foolish dream placed forever
beyond the reach of a woman in Star Fleet?
She looked down into Guy's face and found him intently watching her. She
touched his lips with the tips of her fingers, and he pressed a soft kiss
against the sensitive skin. She realized she was probably reading too much
into his statement. Guy was a man who could have-did have-any number of
women on a dozen different worlds. He couldn't possibly be offering her
anything more than a casual affair. She had been foolish to immediately
begin thinking of long-term commitments and agonizing over career
decisions.
She smiled, and leaned over to kiss him. He reached back to clasp his hands
behind her neck and pull her into a far deeper embrace than she had
planned. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste and touch of him. Finally
he released her.
"Frankly, my darling, I wouldn't trust you to find me a new position,"she
teased.
"And why not?"
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- "You won't even take care of yourself. How can I be sure you'd do any
better looking out for me?"
"I don't need to take care of myself. I have more than enough people
nagging me at any given moment," he grumbled, his face thunderous. He sat
up and scooped up a handful of loose crystal flakes, and allowed them to
/> trickle through his fingers.
"And I'm going to start nagging just as soon as we get back to camp," she
replied plaicidly. "Dr. McCoy wanted you to rest," she continued, pulling
out her communicator. "I'm sure climbing cliffs was not what he had in
mind."
"What are you doing?"
"Calling the ship so they can transport us back to camp."
"I am perfectly capable of walking back to camp," he said stiffly.
"I'm sure you are, but I don't want to go back down that Cliff."
"Why didn't you h ave the ship transport us up here in the first place?" he
asked suspiciously.
"Because we had no coordinates. Now they can pick us up on their scanners,
and send us back to camp. Those coordinates they have."
"Then you're really not doing this just to baby me?"
She sighed and shut her communicator before it could signal the ship. She
then rested her hands on his shoulders and looked seriously into his face.
"Of course I am. You're not well, Guy, that's a fact." She hesitated. "I
care for you, that's another fact. Anything I can do to protect and care
for you I'm going to do." She dropped her hands, and turned away. "Now go
ahead and jump down my throat."
"Ah, Madam Star Fleet." He sighed as he wrapped his arms around her body
and rested his cheek against her back. "You constantly force me to rise
above my own naturally unpleasant nature. Call the ship. And I promise rU
go to bed like the very best of boys when we get back to camp." He glanced
over his shoulder at the Thygetian who was just
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finishing its meal. "Are the females of your race as difficult to handle as
ours are?" Tle creature eyed him serenely and, drawing in a great breath,
resumed the song. "Clearly they are," he said to Uhura. "He is forced to
take refuge in art."
She flipped open her communicator and gave him a disgusted look. "I'm sure
if I compared notes with Kali, and ever managed to communicate with a
Thygetian female, we would all agree that it's the males of any species who
cause the problems. 01
Kirk, if he could have heard her, would have totally agreed. After Spock's
Star Trek - TOS - The Tears Of The Singers Page 14
