The Weight of Worlds

by Greg Cox

  “Yes, Lasem! With pleasure!”

  Lasem turned urgently toward Kirk and the others. “Time eludes us! As soon as this carriage is uncoupled, you must make your escape. My comrades and I shall keep your pursuers occupied for as long as we can endure.” He paused long enough to offer them the same four-fingered salute Vlisora had employed before. “May your ancestors watch over you!”

  Spock replied by parting his own fingers in a traditional Vulcan sign. “Live long and prosper, Lasem.”

  “Unlikely,” the rebel leader said. “But I value the sentiment.” He moved briskly toward the rear exit, even as the train lurched into motion, zooming back the way it had come. “Now . . . make haste!”

  He disappeared out the exit, which slid shut behind him. Moments later, a jarring rattle signaled that the luxury car had been jettisoned from the train. Rushing to the exit to confirm this, Kirk peered out a porthole at the back of the train as it sped away from them, straight into the oncoming Crusaders. Ominous green lights flashed farther down the tunnel, where the train was heading. Kirk heard shouts and explosions.

  Good luck, he thought.

  Detached from the departing train, the carriage soon skidded to a halt. Vlisora snatched up the waiting ponchos and hurled them at Spock and Kirk. “Hurry! We must depart!”

  “So I gather,” Kirk said.

  He and Spock hastily donned the hooded garments, pulling them on over their uniforms, while Vlisora opened an emergency escape hatch in the side of the carriage. She beckoned anxiously to them. “This way! Quickly!”

  “We’re coming!” Kirk promised. He glanced back at his first officer. “Spock?”

  “Just a moment, Captain.” Spock procured a fossilized wooden staff from a pile of artifacts that had spilled onto the floor. He held the staff up for Vlisora’s inspection. “I trust this is not a relic of exceptional rarity or significance?”

  “Merely an archaeological exhibit,” she stated, looking it over quickly. “A hunting staff from the early protodynastic period. Of historic interest, but hardly unique or irreplaceable. Why?”

  “Under the circumstances, I would prefer not to be completely unarmed.” Spock hefted the staff, which was similar in length to a Vulcan lirpa. “Not quite as effective as a phaser, but with your permission . . . ?”

  “Yes! Take it!” she said. “Now let us go . . . while we still can!”

  “After you,” Kirk said. “Ladies first.”

  They scrambled out of the abandoned carriage, dropping onto the curved floor of the tunnel, which had clearly not been designed for pedestrian traffic. There was only a narrow gap between the car and the tunnel wall, making for a tight squeeze, but they slipped past a short string of discarded carriages, including the bullet-shaped lead car at the end, to reach an empty stretch of track beyond. Vlisora led the way once more, brandishing her handy palm-light. A luminous white beam lit up the murky tunnel. Dust and smoke, stirred up by the recent explosion, muddied the beam.

  A violent din, coming from the opposite end of the tunnel, added urgency to their retreat. Emerald gravity beams flashed in the distance, along with brilliant orange flames and geysers of yellow sparks. Crashing metal competed with furious shouts, cries of pain, ear-piercing screeches, and a frenzied flapping that sent a primordial chill down Kirk’s spine.

  What was that about winged serpents again?

  Spock glanced back at the flashing green lights. “Ironically,” he observed, “gravity is actually the weakest of the four fundamental forces.”

  “You wouldn’t know it from those weapons,” Kirk said grimly. “Or from how they clobbered us back on Ephrata IV.”

  Hurrying away from the fighting behind them, they didn’t get far before coming to a dead end. The beam from the palm-light exposed a fresh cave-in ahead. Heaped debris shifted worryingly as it settled. Loose scree trickled between fallen slabs and chunks of masonry. Dust wafted down from cracks in the ceiling.

  Kirk saw no easy way past the obstacle. His phaser might be able to carve a way through eventually, but only at the risk of causing an even greater collapse. And who knew what forces might be waiting on the other side of the cave-in? Somebody had to have set off that explosion. Kirk was in no hurry to run into them.

  “Where now?” he asked.

  “There are service corridors and emergency exits through the network,” Vlisora said. She swept the dusty air with the beam from her light, coughing on the floating particulates. “There must be one . . . There!”

  The glowing beam found a sealed doorway marked by an indecipherable alien rune. Actual cobwebs, unlike the camouflage webbing on the rebel’s train, shrouded the long-forgotten exit. Kirk tried the door, which resisted his efforts to open it. He tugged strenuously.

  “Mister Spock?”

  “Do you require assistance, Captain?”

  “If you don’t mind. . . .”

  He surrendered the stubborn door to Spock, who took hold of the latch with one hand. As on the flyer earlier, his Vulcan strength proved sufficient to the task. Decrepit hinges groaned as the door came unstuck, swinging open to reveal an unlit stairwell beyond. Startled rodents or lizards—or some exotic combination thereof—with silver skin, black eyes, and golden whiskers, scurried away in fright.

  “Nicely done, Mister Spock,” Kirk said. “You see, you’re already proving of great use on this mission, despite your earlier concerns.”

  “I am gratified that you think so.”

  Vlisora had no patience for their banter. Glancing fearfully at the commotion farther down the tracks, she darted into the stairwell, taking their only light source with her. “Please! We must be away from here. Lasem and his forces cannot hold out for long!”

  Kirk nodded, not wanting the rebels’ valiant efforts to go to waste. He and Spock followed Vlisora up the stairway toward the upper levels of the subway system and, in theory, the surface. The tumult of battle gradually died away as they climbed, but Lasem’s sacrifice still haunted Kirk’s conscience. He wasn’t sure how he could live up to the rebels’ desperate hopes and expectations—or even if he should.

  Are they asking too much of us?

  The stairway led to another doorway, which opened onto an underground loading station running parallel to a length of tracks a meter below. Kirk could easily imagine hordes of commuters crowding the platform, back when the rail system was still a going concern. Now the empty platform was as dark and desolate as the tomb of some forgotten Romulan emperor. Faded graffiti and cobwebs obscured obsolete signs and markings. Something slithered across the tunnel below.

  A hot, muggy draft carried the promise of a route to the surface, somewhere at the other end of the station. They walked briskly across the platform, brushing aside the hanging cobwebs, which clung to Kirk’s face and hands. He grimaced in distaste. Despite the risk of exposure, he’d be glad to get out of these musty catacombs.

  “Captain.” Spock cocked his head, as though listening to something. “Do you hear that?”

  Not at first, but then Kirk’s merely human ears picked up what Spock had already detected: an ominous rustling overhead, along with angry hissing.

  “Scrilatyl!” Vlisora exclaimed.

  She tried to catch the flying predator in the beam of her palm-light, but caught only quick, momentary glimpses of wildly flapping silver wings. Kirk was reminded of a frantic bat that had once invaded his attic back when he was growing up in Iowa. He drew his phaser, but the creature’s erratic flight pattern made it impossible to get a bead on it. Spock struck a defensive stance with his staff.

  Vlisora spun about on the platform, unable to keep the scrilatyl in view. Something hissed above and behind her. She whirled around, aiming her palm-light, just in time to reveal a serpentine creature, boasting scalloped silver wings, segmented coils, and two vicious foreclaws, swooping down at her. Black eyes and fangs gleamed like polished ebony. Golden spines bristled like whiskers above its gaping jaws. A savage hiss evolved into a nerve-jangling screech. Startle
d, Vlisora screeched almost as loudly.

  A heartbeat later, she was knocked to the floor. Her palm-light flew from her hand, skittering off the platform onto the tracks below. Blackness descended on the abandoned station, hiding both Vlisora and her attacker. Frantic cries, shrieks, and screeches echoed confusingly off the tunnel walls. Spock’s staff clattered to the ground. Kirk heard Vlisora fighting and screaming, but wasn’t sure where to fire his phaser. He didn’t want to risk stunning her when they might need to flee on foot at any moment.

  Damn it, he thought. I need to see what’s happening!

  An unconventional tactic occurred to him. Switching his phaser from stun to heat, he fired at the ceiling, energizing the ceramic tiles until they glowed red. A dim, ruddy radiance illuminated the platform, revealing . . .

  Spock locked in combat with an enraged scrilatyl. He had the thrashing creature by the throat, holding it away from his body, as the animal snapped and hissed at him. Flapping wings stirred up the air. Clawed forelimbs slashed at Spock’s chest, drawing dark green blood. A serpentine tail whipped about madly.

  “Kill it!” Vlisora cried out, sprawled on the platform a few paces away. The back of her tunic was shredded, barely holding together. Delicate silver scales could be glimpsed through the rents in her garment, along with long, shallow scratches. The incarnadine glow from the ceiling made the scratches look gorier than they were. She shouted urgently. “Before it summons others!”

  A pained look came over Spock’s face. A sharp crack cut off the creature’s wild screeching, and it went limp in his grip. He released the scrilatyl, which fell lifeless at his feet.

  “A pity,” he said with obvious regret. “It seemed a remarkable life-form.”

  Kirk recalled that tal-shaya was considered a merciful form of execution by the ancient Vulcans. “You did what you had to.”

  “I know,” Spock said. “But it is a waste of life regardless.”

  Kirk helped Vlisora to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  “Well enough,” she assured him, despite her torn flesh and clothing. “The scrilatyl are trained not to kill their prey, merely hold them for the hunting party. And to call out when the prey is cornered.”

  Like a mastiff pinning a poacher until the gamekeeper arrives, Kirk thought, relieved that the renegade priestess had not been seriously harmed by the creature. “What about you, Mister Spock?”

  “Mere scratches, Captain.” He inspected the slashed poncho over his chest. Wet green stains glistened on the torn fabric. “Assuming the creature’s claws are not envenomed?”

  Vlisora shook her head. “Praise the ancestors, no.”

  The light from the cooling roof was already fading. Kirk jumped down onto the tracks and recovered Vlisora’s palm-light. Climbing back onto the platform, he turned the beam on the dead scrilatyl, taking a moment to examine the alien creature more closely.

  A scaly silver hide, glossy black eyes, a beaked nose, golden tentacles in place of whiskers . . . it was hard to miss the resemblance to the Ialatl.

  “One of your divine ancestors?” he asked.

  “More like a distant cousin, evolutionarily speaking.” She contemplated the lifeless carcass. “Legend has it that the first God-King was suckled by a female scrilatyl in a cavern beneath what is now the royal temple. They have been the symbol and totem of the kingship ever since.” She looked gravely at Spock. “To kill one is a mortal sin, punishable by death.”

  “Regrettable,” Spock said. He recovered his staff. “My apologies.”

  Vlisora did not seem inclined to hold his transgression against him. “And my thanks,” she answered. “I would have done the same if I could.”

  Kirk doubted that the Crusaders would be as forgiving.

  “We’d better destroy the evidence then.”

  A brilliant pulse from his phaser incinerated the scrilatyl’s remains, leaving nothing but a blackened scorch mark on the platform. The smell of burnt flesh hung in the air.

  Kirk worried briefly about the phaser’s charge. The weapon was designed to function for extended landing missions, but its power packs were not infinite in capacity. They could be in trouble if he used the phaser indiscriminately.

  “That is well,” she said. “But we cannot linger. The scrilatyl’s cries will draw its kin . . . and the Crusaders close behind them. We must seek higher ground.”

  Reclaiming her light, she guided them to another stairwell that led them up out of the tunnels to the city above. Spock used his staff like a machete to clear away the cobwebs clotting the way out. Vlisora cautiously stuck her head out of the subway entrance before urging them onward.

  “The way appears clear. Come!”

  Night had fallen on Ialat, bringing with it a warm drizzle that Kirk found preferable to the sweltering heat of day—and which gave him and Spock a good excuse to pull their hoods over their heads.

  Seems we lucked out with the weather, Kirk thought. So to speak.

  They found themselves on the ground level of the city, in what struck Kirk as a less than salubrious district. Graffiti and litter contrasted sharply with the gleaming metropolis he had earlier glimpsed from above. Run-down storefronts showed obvious signs of disrepair. Weeds sprouted through cracks in the pavement. The streets and sidewalks were empty, as though the city’s citizens knew better than to venture here after dark. Flying vehicles zipped by high overhead, displaying no interest in descending to this level. The lights of the upper towers barely filtered down from above. Kirk glanced around at the relative squalor.

  “Not exactly a good neighborhood, I take it?”

  “Hardly,” Vlisora confirmed, glancing about warily. She tucked her pendant beneath the collar of her tunic, whether out of fear of theft or simply to conceal her status as High Priestess, Kirk could only guess. She gestured at their grubby surroundings. “As I mentioned before, my people took to the air after the Gravity Revolution, leaving the ground to wither in neglect. Today the lower levels of the city are often abandoned to crime and vice. Few come here without shameful intent.”

  “I have to admit that I’m somewhat relieved to find out that vice is still an issue here,” Kirk said with a smile. “What with the Crusade and all.”

  “We are still but flesh and blood,” she admitted. “As were even our divine ancestors, although many of the Crusade’s most strident adherents often prefer to overlook that fact.” She shrugged. “Even in the midst of the present craving for purity and deliverance, a society of total righteousness is not possible . . . or even desirable.”

  “I know what you mean,” Kirk said. Most of the “perfect” societies he had encountered in the past, from Eminiar VII to Gamma Trianguli VI, had usually turned out to have a fly in the ointment—and to be distinctly less than human. “Too much of anything, even righteousness, can be a bad thing.”

  She gave him a knowing look. “Now that is the God-Slayer I was praying for.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, still uncomfortable with the idea that Vlisora expected him to overthrow her God-King. “I’m just saying that such frailties make your people seem a little less . . . alien.”

  The rain began to fall more heavily.

  “Might I suggest we continue this discussion elsewhere,” Spock said, “perhaps somewhere less exposed?”

  “Practical as ever, Mister Spock.” Kirk looked to Vlisora for direction. “Any ideas on that score?”

  She scanned the shadowy, rain-swept streets and alleys. Her gaze lighted on a solitary flyer parked at the curb. The aircraft, which was noticeably smaller and less elegant than the royal flyer she had crashed earlier, appeared unoccupied. It would be a tight fit, but it looked as though it might hold three. Kirk wondered how hard it would be to hot-wire.

  “The ancestors have seen to our needs,” she declared, clearly thinking along the same lines. Abandoning the shelter of the tunnel entrance, they dashed over to the flyer, where she directed Kirk to fire a narrow phaser beam at a locking mechanism. A hatch
opened . . . and a siren sounded. “Misbegotten spawn!” she swore. “The alarm!”

  Reaching into the cockpit, she muted the alarm, but the damage was already done. A door swung open on the ground floor of one of the surrounding buildings. Raucous music and laughter spilled onto the sidewalk, followed by a portly Ialatl who staggered out of the inauspicious-looking edifice. The man’s tunic was disheveled. His four-toed feet were bare. Viscous orange syrup or jelly smeared his mouth and beard. He stared belligerently at Kirk and the others.

  “You there! What are you doing with my flyer?”

  Kirk lowered his face, but it was too late. The light from the doorway fell upon his and Spock’s conspicuously alien countenances. A look of shocked recognition came over the Ialatl’s messy face.

  “It’s you!” he gasped. “The infidels from beyond!” He backed away, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Over here! It’s the infidels! They’re here!”

  Damn, Kirk thought. I should’ve known this was too easy.

  He stunned the man with a phaser beam, dropping him to the pavement, but the stranger’s frantic cries had not gone unheeded. Male and female Ialatl, in various stages of undress, poured out of the building, clutching weapons both genuine and improvised. Canes, bottles, ropes, chains, forks, skewers, and actual knives and hammers had been drafted into the holy cause of defending Ialat from the dreaded infidels. Even here in the depths, it seemed, the word of the God-King still held weight.

  “There they are!” a woman shrieked. The spines across her head stood up like the quills of a porcupine. She waved a dripping steel ladle at the fugitives. “Get them . . . as the God-King wills!”

  Shouting furiously, the mob surged toward Kirk and the others. A collective frenzy contorted their silver faces. Pounding feet trampled over the stunned Ialatl in their haste to capture the infidels.

  “Get in!” Vlisora shouted. She slid into the pilot’s seat and fired up the control panel. Kirk and Spock dived into the passenger seats behind her. Spock wedged his staff into the compact space. Vlisora spun a knob and the hatch sealed behind them, right before the mob swarmed over the flyer. “By the ancestors, they’re worse than rabid scrilatyl!”