DOOMSDAY WORLD Read online

  “They will not, Geordi.”

  All this time Worf had been silent, as if considering something. And suddenly he tilted back his head and roared, an earsplitting bellow that started in a low register and grew higher and louder. Geordi flinched, and Data actually clapped his hands over his ears. Thul ran back about ten yards and Stephaleh turned her antennae away to spare herself the sound.

  Worf stopped after about ten seconds and looked down at Nassa again. “She knew the language of the Klingon,” he said, “and she had the heart of a warrior. It was appropriate to honor her with the Klingon death scream.”

  Geordi said simply, “I’m sure she would have appreciated it, Worf.”

  He stood. Stephaleh walked over to him and said softly, “I shall arrange for the body to be returned. In the meantime I suggest you go back to the embassy immediately. With this newest attack, relations will deteriorate even further, and I would prefer to have everyone safe when that happens.”

  “Right. Right, okay.” Geordi looked down at Coleridge one more time and then, without a word, headed back for the transmat booth. Data and Worf fell into step behind him.

  The ambassador’s antennae twitched in sympathy. She had known Coleridge for only a relatively brief time. And besides, Andorians did not permit themselves to become too emotional about such matters as death.

  She bent over to cover the body and felt a twinge in her lower back. At first she started to curse the unrelenting pains of age, and then she stopped. The alternative to pain and old age, she realized, was death. Nassa Coleridge would never feel pain again, but that was hardly beneficial.

  At least the aches, the pains, the twinges, were reminders that she, Stephaleh, was still alive. Perhaps she should be grateful for them.

  She rose, and her right thigh cramped up completely. She started to massage the muscles and thought, Yes. Perhaps.

  Chapter Eight

  STATIC SHOTS of the surface of Tehuán flickered rapidly across the main viewscreen of the Enterprise. Too rapidly. Captain Picard shut his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The stream of sensor images was giving him eyestrain. Or perhaps, he thought glumly, he was giving way to the frustration of trying to uncover a reason for the attack on Tehuán. Perhaps he was trying too hard, thus losing sight of an essential detail that would become obvious once he simply relaxed.

  After a moment’s repose, he felt the throbbing in his temples ease. Picard opened his eyes again. Pain slammed back into place, and the mystery of Tehuán remained as impenetrable as ever.

  Damn.

  He missed Data. He needed Data. Not only did the android possess a certain rapport with the computers that facilitated research, but he also acted as a sounding board for Picard’s own thoughts. Data might not always provide the solution to a problem, but his comments often inspired a new perspective that led to that solution. At the moment Picard was definitely lacking inspiration.

  He turned at the sound of footsteps coming from the aft deck and was relieved to see Lieutenant Dean approaching the captain’s chair. The science officer was a spare man with a wiry build. He worked quietly and efficiently, but at the pace of a human being. Picard pushed aside the unfair comparison with Data. What mattered was that the report was finished at last; now they could make some progress.

  But Dean shook his head in bewilderment. “Computer analysis hasn’t revealed any distinctive features of this settlement. The five other colonies in this sector are also basically agricultural and equally vulnerable to attack. None of them is especially prosperous yet, but Devlin Four has a large reserve of trade goods. It will probably be the next target.”

  “I disagree,” said Ensign Burke, leaning over the railing of the upper deck to join the discussion. He lacked the imposing bulk of the Klingon security chief, but he spoke with the typically emphatic manner of a security officer. “Sensor scans from all alerted outposts are negative. There are still no signs of an alien fleet in the sector, and a dozen ships couldn’t travel from Tehuán to Devlin without being detected.”

  “So,” Picard sighed. “They have been ‘Swallowed up and lost in the wide womb of uncreated night.’ ”

  “Is that Shakespeare, sir?” asked Wesley Crusher, looking up from the Conn console.

  “Milton. I gather you haven’t read Paradise Lost.”

  “Uh, no, sir.” The ensign hurriedly returned to his sensor readings. He tapped the control panel, and the viewscreen froze on a single aerial view of land cradled between two mountain ranges. “Surface scan completed, Captain. No indications of damage to any other areas. The settlement valley seems to be the only site that was attacked.”

  Picard had expected as much, so the confirmation provided little useful knowledge; but at least the parade of images was over. How ironic that from this distance the devastation of the colony appeared as nothing more than scattered black smudges on a swatch of green. In a few seasons, once rain had washed away the dust and new growth had covered the scorched ground, even those signs would be erased.

  Yet there were older, deeper scars that the vegetation had not completely masked out.

  “Ensign, increase magnification by ten.” The ground sprang closer, but the outlines were still faint. “There’s something very familiar about—”

  Picard was cut off by an intercom announcement: “Crusher to captain. I have the report you ordered.”

  “I’m on my way, Doctor.” Even as he answered the call, he was springing out of his chair. Since he had demanded the information over the strenuous objections of his chief medical officer, there was no excuse for delay. Nevertheless, when the doors to the forward turbolift opened, the captain hesitated before stepping inside the compartment. He allowed himself one final lingering look at Tehuán.

  “Ensign Crusher, call a geologist to the bridge to inspect that view. I have some questions about the terrain.”

  Beverly Crusher was waiting in her office; her temper had not improved since their last encounter. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the room, she slammed a data padd down on her desk.

  “We’re still treating casualties, and I have to take time away from the living to deal with those who are beyond help.”

  Since he’d heard this argument before and it hadn’t swayed him then, Picard made no comment. Crusher jammed her fists into the pockets of her lab coat and glared at him, but he could tell her anger was nearly spent.

  “Besides, I hate autopsies.”

  “What did you find?” asked Picard, suddenly certain the doctor had discovered something worth reporting.

  Her description was crisp and to the point. “Three bodies with similar markings—a radial pattern of subcutaneous hemorrhaging—were recovered in the vicinity of the rock slide. But they weren’t killed by debris and they weren’t killed by a ship’s phaser barrage.”

  “So the attackers were using a new weapon.”

  She shook her head. “Quite the contrary. I’ll skip the forensic details, but physical evidence indicates the colonists were killed at short range by the blast from a hand-held disrupter.”

  “A disrupter?” He hadn’t expected that old-fashioned twist. “That means at least a few of the raiders actually beamed down to the planet surface.”

  “Yes, but they were careful not to leave any witnesses.”

  At last Picard began to sense some meaning in the events that had puzzled him. That meaning was still hidden, but eventually it could be teased out into the open.

  “So the attack wasn’t simply vandalism or terrorism. They, whoever they are, wanted something on the surface. But what? Not mushrooms—the landslide site is at the foot of the mountains, far distant from the fields. Something else. And the answers are on Tehuán. . . .” He trailed off, distracted by the memory of his last view of the valley. What possible connection could there be . . .

  “Are you beaming down there?” asked Crusher, jarring him out of reverie.

  “I’d have a difficult time justifying that action,” he said with
a hint of embarrassment. “Not very long ago I subjected your son to a lecture on why my place is on the bridge.”

  “Captains have the prerogative of changing their minds.”

  “I’m tempted. But, no, I can’t leave the ship. Not with so many of my bridge officers down on Kirlos and a hostile fleet hiding somewhere in the sector. Commander Riker is a perfectly capable away-team leader; my duty is here on board the Enterprise.”

  She tried to hide a smile and failed. “But you don’t have to like it?”

  “No,” he admitted, smiling back. “I don’t have to like it. Just don’t tell that to Ensign Crusher.”

  Riker scrambled over loose rocks, fighting to climb higher up the slope Of the mountain, but he made little progress on the shifting layer of stone, and his movements raised a billowing cloud of dust. Between fits of coughing, he swept his tricorder in a wide arc around him. The readings were unchanged and unremarkable.

  He slipped the instrument back into his pocket and searched for another path upward.

  “Will, if you’re not more careful you’ll end up in sickbay,” Troi called out from below.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he said through clenched teeth, even though she was too far away to hear him. She was an empath; perhaps she would sense his irritation and leave him to his work. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Riker reached out and groped for a new handhold. The rock underneath his boot wobbled, then gave way entirely and sent him tumbling down the slope to level ground.

  When he opened his eyes, Troi was standing over him, blocking out the light of the noonday sun.

  “Just what were you trying to prove?” she asked.

  Sitting up made his head spin, but otherwise he seemed to be all right. Which probably accounted for Troi’s lack of sympathy. “The captain asked for a thorough examination of the area around the rock slide.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Rocks,” he said, struggling to his feet. He checked his tricorder for signs of damage, but it had also survived the fall intact. “Instrument readings don’t show anything underneath the slide, in the slide, or on top of the slide.”

  Yet Picard had sounded so certain that this site held the key to the attack on Tehuán. Given that conviction, Riker knew that if he didn’t find any evidence, the captain would insist on looking for it himself. No matter that neither of them had any idea just what it was they were searching for.

  “Three people died here.” He kicked up a shower of reddish orange gravel with his boot. “I want to know why.”

  The ground absorbed his abuse without yielding up any secrets.

  “Will, not all puzzles can be solved.”

  “Tell that to our captain.”

  Troi’s silence was all too expressive of Picard’s frame of mind on this issue. Beyond a doubt, he would be dissatisfied with the preliminary tricorder report, but Riker still had another six hours of day-light in which to sift through the area.

  Squinting against the sky’s glare, he looked up at the crumbling ridge that had defeated his attempts to climb the side of Mount Cahuapetl. The skin on his hands had been rubbed raw. Blisters were forming on his feet. He was hot and tired and thirsty. And he had no idea what to do next.

  At times like these, Riker envied the captain sitting in comfort on the bridge.

  Chapter Nine

  ZAMORH WALKED INTO Stephaleh’s office bearing data padds with information, which she barely looked at. Quickly she affixed her signature and let Zamorh leave. She stared at a report on her computer screen and snapped it off. Nothing seemed to satisfy her and she knew why. In a very short amount of time everything she liked about her job had fallen apart. There was death, destruction, mutual suspicion, and a manifestation of the cold war between the Federation and the K’Vin Hegemony right here on Kirlos, in her home. And her leg still bothered her.

  She had let Zamorh inform Gregach about Coleridge’s death. She wanted the time to compose herself and her thoughts. First, the interrupted night’s sleep had made her irritable, and now Coleridge’s death had made the problems personal. Given her office, the death of any Federation member should be personal—but this was someone she had known and respected.

  Already, complaints were coming in from civilians and merchants about being denied access to the K’Vin markets. Trading had come to a standstill, and trading was this planet’s lifeblood. She had no undersecretaries to whom she could delegate responsibility; Kirlos was not considered big enough to warrant such help. Instead, she fielded the complaints when she could and let Zamorh handle the rest.

  Most of all, Stephaleh wanted to talk with Gregach, have him come for a meal and a game. She wanted to be alone with Gregach, to hold an intelligent conversation without suspicion. But Gregach seemed changed by the events—the old warrior in him struggling to make a last stand. She couldn’t deny him his nationalism, but deep down she hoped that he really didn’t suspect Federation personnel of causing the mishaps. If only she could get him alone, without Zamorh or Gezor nearby. Lately it seemed the Sullurh aides were always there.

  Zamorh just then walked back into the office. He stood silent, waiting for his superior to speak.

  “So, Zamorh, I have been handed a problem. And now people expect a response. Any word from the UFP Council?”

  “None yet, Ambassador. And nothing from the Enterprise, either.”

  Stephaleh would have been satisfied to talk directly with Captain Picard, since he was an experienced officer and that meant being a diplomat at times. His counsel would have been helpful. But he had problems of his own aboard the Enterprise—in fact, she had given little thought to the reason the starship had left orbit. A world ravaged by something unknown. Could it come to Kirlos, too? It would certainly be the last thing she needed at present.

  She flipped a switch on her desk console and spoke clearly, with not a hint of strain. “Communications, get me a direct line to Ambassador Gregach. And do not let them stall us.”

  In a few moments, Gregach was on the screen. He had apparently been eating, and some juice remained on his chin. So like Gregach, she thought fondly. Then, pushing fondness behind her, she spoke. “Ambassador Gregach, I regret the events that have taken place in the last few hours. Our planet was peaceful and our relations pleasant,” she began. Gregach just watched. “After you closed your border to us, an incident occurred that cost the life of a member of the Federation. Until this is cleared up and the culprit found, I am afraid I have no choice but to close our border to K’Vin personnel until further notice. I invoke this right by virtue of the treaty between our people.”

  Gregach took this in and nodded. “I expected martial law, Ambassador. I regret Coleridge’s death and my condolences are already on file. Our police force is investigating, and we think some suspects will turn up within a day.”

  “True suspects?” she asked. “Or are you just going through the motions?” She sounded cold, despite herself. Her tone had gotten even softer.

  “I do not like the implication, Ambassador. Nor do I like being denied access to free trade markets. And now I will return to other matters—K’Vin matters.”

  As the screen went dark, Stephaleh sighed. It was a long sigh. She could feel their friendship dissolving as the formality increased in their conversations. Just days ago Gregach would have damned the rules and beamed over for a private conference. But things had changed, and now each of them had to play the role dictated by politics and events.

  “Zamorh,” she said, “inform the population that the K’Vin territory is closed to them until further notice. I want it on the data nets first and then posted in all public spots. When that’s done, return to your investigation of all that’s happened. I want some answers, by the deities, or else I will go mad.” An afterthought: “On your way out, please ask the Enterprise officers to join me.”

  The Sullurh nodded and scurried out of the room, leaving Stephaleh alone with her thoughts. She turned to her window and looked out at the gat
her-swell of people on the streets. Rumors had a way of uniting those that politics could not.

  Everyone knew of the incidents and the deaths by now. Many continued to blame the Starfleet presence while others speculated that the Federation personnel had been brought in to stop some underground movement. How odd that a purely scientific mission had turned into something like this. . . .

  The crowd flowed and ebbed, lapping at the steps of the Federation embassy. Voices rose and fell in the same rhythm, knife-sharp voices erupting from angry throats.

  But each time, the mob was turned back by the presence of the armed guards at the top of the steps. And though their phasers were still on their belts, it was clear that they were there for a reason.

  Lars Trimble had never been part of a crowd before. It was a frightening experience.

  Nor had he ever intended to be part of this surging, seething throng. Far from it. All Trimble meant to do was protest whatever was going on here, whatever was destroying the long peace of Kirlos and, more important, endangering the well-being of his family.

  Others here had their businesses foremost in mind—and surely there was nothing wrong with that. The havoc lately had killed a lot of big deals.

  Lars Trimble had no big deals to yell about—though he might have, if he hadn’t been so damned honest.

  There was only one place in the galaxy where a man could lay hands on the mysterious shrol’dinaggi—the legendary Torquan remembering-stones. That place, of course, was on Torqua, the seventh planet in the K’Vin home system.

  Until just a few months ago, the remembering-stones had been inaccessible to Federation citizens. Then, one night at Busiek’s, Trimble had encountered a visiting merchant with a source for the shrol’dinaggi. His problem was that he could not deal them in K’Vin territory. It was illegal to own or to sell them—something about side effects and threats to one’s mental health—and he did not wish to maintain a high profile in this matter.