“Who’s talking visiting? You’re chief medical officer. And he’s your patient.”
After a moment, Stern’s lips split in a broad smile. “Mac, if my day gets any better, I may have to hire someone to help me enjoy it.”
“I’ll do it for free.” McCoy looked supremely pleased. “That’s my girl.”
Two hours later, Bulast said, “T’Polsignals they’re ready to depart, Captain.”
Despite having prepared herself, Garrett experienced a stomach-twisting lurch of apprehension, the way she had when she was a little girl and someone jumped out of the shadows. She kept her voice bland. “Very well, Mr. Bulast. Wish the T’Pola safe journey.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Mr. Castillo?”
“Course for Draavid cluster already laid in, Ma’am.”
“Very well.”
Glemoor said, “The T’Polis moving off, Captain.”
“On screen.” The main viewscreen winked, and Garrett watched as the Vulcan warpshuttle peeled away. A moment later, the stars behind the T’Pol’s warp bubble blurred, and then the shuttle shot into warp and disappeared.
Good-bye, Halak.Garrett let out her breath in a long, slow exhalation. Godspeed.
She straightened. “All right, Mr. Castillo. Let’s get going. Warp four. Now.”
You can always tell when a ship goes to warp,thought Halak. Not that something very dramatic happened. The floors didn’t shake; the bulkheads didn’t rattle. If the ship and its engines were sound, you didn’t feel a thing. But Halak knew. The ship just feltdifferent. So he knew, without being told, when they’d left Enterprisebehind.
His quarters were Spartan: a bunk, a square lozenge of a pillow. A chair and a small round table bolted to the floor. No companel, no replicator, no portal. The walls were gray. They’d better make good time; else he’d go stir-crazy wondering what the hell had gone wrong with his life.
And this woman Burke: Obviously, SI hadn’t briefed her about his mission to Ryn III. Well, standard intelligence procedure: No dissemination of information, for pity’s sake, else everyone might know their right hand from their left. Batanides had better clear things up.
The door hissed, and Burke stepped into the room. “We’re under way,” Burke said. “I came to see if you were comfortable.”
Halak almost laughed. “The mattress is hard.”
“The mattresses are worse in prison. Mind if I sit down?” She didn’t wait for his reply but took the room’s only chair. Crossed her legs and clasped her hands over her left knee. “Commander, how would you like to save your career?”
It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting, and he wasn’t prepared for his reaction either: an overwhelming sense of relief. It was all a mistake; she was going to tell him she knew all about Ryn III and the Breen and the Cardassian connection, and it was all some horrible mistake.
“I’ll take silence as a yes.Well, then, how much do you know about the Cardassians? Specifically,” Burke gave him a look that was almost coy, “how much do you know about the Hebitians?”
Chapter 24
“Ten days,” said Su Chen-Mai, pacing. His moon-shaped face was as purple as an overripe Denebian plum. “Ten days, and you haven’t picked up a thing, Kaldarren. We have to nothing to show for our time, nothing!”
Kaldarren sat, his eyes tracking back and forth. Chen-Mai was having another tantrum, and Kaldarren knew from experience that it was best to wait him out. It helped that after eleven hours of crawling over rubble, he was too bone-tired to argue.
They were in the biosphere’s common room where they took their meals and had their arguments. The room smelled of men’s sweat, sour canned air, and the apricotlike aroma of Catrayan porridge Kaldarren hadn’t been able to force down because his stomach was in knots. He wanted something to drink though; he’d even settle for some of that awful bourbon Rachel liked so much. The air filters in the Cardassian biosphere were relics. The longer they stayed, coming and going and bringing more dust and debris that adhered to the electrostatic charges they built up on their suits, the more Kaldarren’s mouth tasted like grit.
Chen-Mai frothed. “And what do you bring back? Just some useless artifacts.” He swept a dismissive hand at a trio of sculpted stone figures. “Nothing valuableat all!”
Spoken like a true mercenary, not a scientist. Well, there was a saying for it, something he’d picked up from Garrett: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Kaldarren ran a finger over the rough stone of one figure. The statue was of a chimera, part lizard (snake?)and part woman but with the folded wings of a bat. The left edge of the stone had fractured, distorting what Kaldarren thought was the face. The figure bore some resemblance to what the Cardassians claimed were ancient Hebitian artifacts—specifically, the Hebitian god of the Underworld. As he remembered it, the Hebitian god was usually rendered as a dragon alongside the king who was portrayed as a plump, white, slumbering, bull-like Cardassian toj’lath.
But this figure was altogether different. For one thing, it was a woman, not a man, and for another…Kaldarren’s finger traced the chiseled features. The stone had suffered over time, but there was the faintest suggestion of a half-mask of some sort, one that covered the face down to the nose. The mask was very odd. As far as he knew, the lore about the old Cardassian religion made no reference to masks of any kind. He wouldn’t know for sure until he could study the statue under a high-resolution magnifier, and access a database to check on similar finds, if any. The Cardassians weren’t known for their openness.
Kaldarren looked up at Chen-Mai. “I guess it depends on your definition of value. This isvaluable. There’s nothing like it in any collection as far as I’m aware.”
Chen-Mai’s black eyes sparkled like polished stones, but he didn’t stop moving. “Don’t play games. You know exactlywhat I’m talking about. These statues, these potsherds and other things you’ve found, they’re not why we’re here.”
“I know why we’re here,” said Kaldarren. He swallowed, and felt his throat ball with the effort. “Chen-Mai, has it ever occurred to you that there might not be anything topick up? Maybe our information is wrong.”
Chen-Mai stopped his pacing long enough to fix Kaldarren with a poisonous glare. “That’s not what the legends say. That’s not what yousaid when you read them.”
Chen-Mai had done the translation but Kaldarren decided to be charitable, and prudent. “Maybe we were wrong.”
“Iwasn’t wrong, not then and not now.”
“All right. You weren’t wrong.” Kaldarren lifted his hands in a weary, well-what-do-you-wantgesture and let them fall to the table. One of the boys (Jase, probably, he had always been a messy eater) had left a halo of crumbs. Kaldarren pressed the pad of his right forefinger to the table, dabbing up crumbs that he rolled between his fingers.
Thinking about Jase made him tense. The boys had been very quiet at dinner that night. True, there wasn’t a lot for them to talk about; no school, and both Kaldareen and Leahru-Mar were gone most of the day. But Kaldarren couldn’t recall a time since they’d come to this planet when the boys had been so… guarded.Kaldarren considered the word then found it apt. Yes, they had been guarded,both of them. In fact, Kaldarren had been tempted to probe Jase for an instant, just to see.