2268
“Dammit, Desai, what the hell were you thinking? I sent you to Kadru to fix things, not make them worse!”
Cringing as Nogura responded to her mission update, Desai sat back in the navigator’s seat of the Guo Shoujing, holding her head with one hand. She’d never been more grateful for the lack of viewscreens on Class-F shuttlecraft. “I haven’t given up, sir.”
“Is that meant to reassure me?” the admiral asked as the shuttlecraft’s tripartite hatch opened, letting in a cloud of cool, humid air. Desai looked up to see Fisher emerging from Kadru’s foggy night, carrying a bulky parcel under one arm. “You’ve been there less than twelve hours, and in that time, you’ve managed not only to undo whatever goodwill Commander Miller achieved with the colonists, you’ve actually set back the Federation’s broken relationship with these people even further. Is that a fair summation?”
Fisher winced.
After a prolonged silence, Nogura said, “I want the situation on Kadru resolved, I don’t care how. Are we clear on that, Captain?”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Where do we stand on the investigation into Commander Miller’s death?”
Fisher raised a hand to Rana, signaling her to stall. “I’m still waiting for Doctor Fisher to make his report, sir,” she answered truthfully.
“Keep me informed. Nogura out.”
Desai closed the link. “Don’t say it,” she warned Fisher.
“I wouldn’t know what to tell you,” Fisher laughed as she settled into the helmsman’s chair. “I’m starting to think no matter what I say, you’ll just end up doing the opposite.”
Desai sighed. “I really don’t want to ask you about the autopsy.”
Fisher held up the tricorder slung across his chest. “It’s right here. You can read it in the morning, if you like.”
“I’ll do that, but bottom-line it for me now.”
“COD: inconclusive.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish,” Fisher said. “The condition of Miller’s body is consistent with drowning, but he was thoroughly cleaned after the first autopsy. That’s standard procedure, but it conveniently removed any trace evidence that would have confirmed his whereabouts at the time of death, or if he was really alone. There was nonfatal blunt-force trauma to the head, but if he fell and lost consciousness, then accidental drowning sounds more and more plausible.”
“Unless someone knocked him out deliberately,” Desai countered.
“I can’t rule it out, but there’s no definitive way to know, either way.”
“What’ve you got there?” she asked, nodding toward Fisher’s parcel.
“Aole’s uniform . . . also conspicuously lacking in trace evidence.”
“His uniform,” Desai repeated. “His uniform . . .” She abruptly left her chair and raced into the aft compartment.
“What’s the matter?”
Desai came out with Miller’s duffel bag and spilled its contents onto the deck. There was a personal hygiene kit, several sets of undergarments and socks, a hard-copy book, a deck of cards, and his communicator. “I inventoried Aole’s personal effects after I got back to the shuttle. What’s missing from this picture?”
“His uniform?”
“His spare uniform,” Desai corrected. “Aole expected to spend at least a week at New Anglesey, without access to a Starfleet quartermaster. Any officer would have brought extras on an assignment like this. I brought three. What about you?”
“Two,” Fisher said.
“He didn’t bring any civvies, either. But let’s assume he expected to have access to the local laundry facilities. A reasonable minimum is one spare uniform for a weeklong assignment, wouldn’t you agree?”
Fisher nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Something’s not right here,” Desai said. walking back to the navigation console and deftly reopening a channel to Vanguard.
“You’re contacting Nogura about this?” Fisher asked with concern.
Desai shook her head. “Quartermaster’s office.” It took a few minutes to reestablish the connection with the station’s comm center, and only seconds for the call to be relayed to the QM. Under the authority of the JAG office, Desai requested an immediate audit of Aole Miller’s uniform consumption, checked against the contents of his quarters. As requisitions and recycles were closely monitored, it wouldn’t take long to confirm how many of Miller’s uniforms were missing from the station. Desai kept the channel open while the officer on duty went to work.
“I know I don’t need to tell you that even if they turn up a discrepancy, it doesn’t mean Aole was murdered,” Fisher said.
“Granted,” said Desai. “But at a minimum, it would suggest one or more people on this colony are conspiring to cover up something. I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to think Nogura’s suspicions about these people may not be unwarranted.”
“Rana, are you listening to yourself? Is this a search for the truth, or a witch hunt?”
The comm system chimed. Vanguard’s quartermaster confirmed that two of Miller’s uniforms were unaccounted for.
Desai thanked the officer and signed off. “Tell me you don’t think these people are hiding something,” she said to Fisher.
“I never doubted they were,” Fisher said. “I’m just not ready to believe it’s a crime.”
“I don’t have that luxury, Fish. And since I’m ranking officer . . .”
Fisher sighed. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing until morning. But then I want you to talk to the locals. Nose around. Do that ‘kindly old grandfather’ thing you’re so good at. Somebody who knows what really happened to Aole must be willing to talk about it. Find them.”
Fisher nodded. “I can do that. What about you?”
Desai looked around at the cramped shuttlecraft cabin. “I’m going to finally figure out how anyone manages to get any sleep in one of these things, and then tomorrow I’m going to find Doctor Ying and try to persuade her we’re the good guys.”
“Are we?” Fisher asked.
Desai didn’t answer.
The sun rose over New Anglesey as a hazy patch of light behind the planet’s gray veil of clouds. Fisher found Tavia alone, shooting hoops at a crude basketball court. He spent a good half hour watching her play from a bench across the street. Her form was good, her balance and agility excellent, but her short stature would, in Fisher’s judgment, severely limit her ability to dominate the court against a taller opponent, unless she could improve her jump shot.
“You’re waiting too long to shoot,” Fisher called out as he crossed the street.
She stopped mid-dribble, looking irritated as she met him at the edge of the court. “Were you talking to me?”
He nodded at the hoop. “Your jump shot. You’ve been making it on your way down. You’ve got strong legs, but you need to shoot a little earlier, right when you’re reaching the apex of your jump. Give it a try.”
Despite her obvious annoyance at the intrusion, she started dribbling again, then broke into a run toward the hoop, leaped, and launched the ball with both hands.
It rebounded off the backboard and went into a spin on the rim of the hoop before falling through.
Fisher applauded. Tavia walked back to him wearing a grin. “You play?” she asked.
“Me? Oh, no. I’m a professional spectator.” He held out his hand. “I’m Ezekiel.”
“Doctor Fisher, yeah, I remember.” She took his hand and shook it. “Octavia Dawes. But you can call me Tavia.”
And just like that, the ice is broken.
“Zeke,” Fisher said. “But if you’d rather keep calling me Herbert . . .”
Tavia gritted her teeth in embarrassment. “Oh, hey, I’m sorry about that. I can be a little rough around the edges sometimes.”
Fisher smiled. “Hadn’t noticed. What do you do here, Tavia?”
“Xenobiologist. And please, no cracks about my age.”
Fisher gestured toward his silver hair. “I won’t if you won’t.”
Tavia laughed. “All right. We reach.”
“Good! Any friend of Aole’s . . .”
Her grin didn’t disappear, but it lost much of its mirth. “He’s the reason you came to see me, isn’t he?”
Fisher nodded.
“I heard your friend used a real hard lip on Doctor Ying.”
“I heard the same thing,” Fisher said. “But if it makes you feel any better, she’s going to apologize. She was a friend of Aole’s, too. She’s just having a hard time understanding why you all would want to stay out here after Starfleet leaves.”
“What about you?” Tavia asked. “You having a hard time with it, too?”
“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t have my concerns. I had a friend, you see—Terry Sadler. Sometime back he joined the colony on Ingraham B. Then a couple of years ago, Terry and everyone else there died because the settlement was too far from help when they needed it. Part of me still wonders if we sometimes push into the galaxy too far, too quickly.”
“So because your friend died on the frontier, now you’re bleeding for us?” Tavia asked.
“Aole Miller bled for you.”
Tavia looked away. “Why are you still here? Can’t you and your friend just take him and go?”
“Not until we understand the reason he died. Do you know, Tavia?”
“Maybe.”
“Were you there when it happened?”
Tavia dribbled her basketball a few times. “No. But I was the one who found his body.”
Kadru’s star was past its zenith when Desai met with Ying. She found the governor exactly where she said she’d be: the open-air café that looked out on the town square. Coffee for two was already set out on the table, and she sat alone. Ying gestured for her to sit, and Desai eased gratefully into the empty chair. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
Ying reached for the carafe and filled Desai’s cup. “Whatever you have to say, Captain, I hope you’ll make it quick. I have work to do.”
“I wanted to apologize for being so confrontational with you yesterday,” Desai began. “I’m a trial lawyer, accustomed to adversarial relationships, and lately I’ve had trouble remembering that not everyone facing me across a table is my enemy.”
Ying studied her face. “Apology accepted,” she said finally. “But I get the sense that isn’t really why we’re here.”
“I came to Kadru for two reasons, Doctor Ying: to understand why Aole Miller died, but also to finish what he started. Now I realize the question I should have been asking is, Why did Aole come here?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Desai groped for words before she finally admitted, “You’re right about Starfleet: it can’t be everywhere to stop bad things from happening. There are times when it’s compelled to make terrible decisions, and also times when it simply fails. But every so often it remembers that it has limitations. That’s why the Federation decided these evacuations were necessary, and why Aole came here in person: it was an act of desperation, because he believed convincing you of the need to leave Kadru was too important not to make every conceivable effort. The Taurus Reach is incendiary, and Starfleet doesn’t want any more Gamma Tauri Fours. When we discontinue regular patrols in this sector, Kadru won’t be safe anymore.”
In the silence that followed, a profound sadness enveloped Ying’s face until finally the governor said, “That’s why we have to stay.”
Fisher and Tavia crept uphill through the fog-shrouded rain forest kilometers south of New Anglesey. The heat and humidity were intense, and Fisher saw worry in his guide’s eyes when she looked at him. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she said.
“I must be quite the sight,” he chuckled. “Is it much farther?”
“No, but—”
“Then I’d rather not turn back now, if it’s all the same to you.”
He didn’t argue when she insisted they take a break, and while the two of them spent a few minutes resting and rehydrating, another terrifying animal cry rang out, not unlike the ones Fisher had heard since he and Desai first arrived on Kadru. But this time it sounded much louder and close by.
Before Fisher could ask about it, Tavia urged him to be silent and follow her. They took a well-worn path to the top of a rise, keeping low as they peered over the top. At the bottom of the slope on the other side, a carpet of fog obscured the surface of a great river, which Fisher recognized by the muffled roar of rushing water. Two hundred meters out from the hidden shore, a great rock jutted up from the fog, and perched atop it, searching the mist for easy prey, was a large reptilian predator.
The raptorlike creature was breathtaking, at least three times the height of a man, built for speed and violence. Its dramatic colors mesmerized Fisher, as did the batwing membranes that occasionally flexed open from its flanks while its four eyes attempted to pierce the fog.
Fisher started to ask about the creature, only to find Tavia’s hand over his mouth. “Keep still,” she whispered. “It’s about to feed.”
Fisher continued to watch when, quite suddenly, a huge burst of water rose behind the raptor, followed by a snakelike head at least four meters wide with massive jaws that snapped shut around the creature’s body. The raptor thrashed in futility as the leviathan dragged it off the rock and down into the shrouded water.
“My God,” Fisher said softly. “What was that?”
“The reason Aole died,” Tavia said.
Desai didn’t understand what Ying was trying to tell her, but seeing the tears streaming from the governor’s eyes, she felt certain she was close to something important.
Before she could ask, both women noticed a number of colonists running south through the town square. They looked almost frantic.
“What’s going on?” Desai asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ying said, quickly wiping her eyes and pushing away from the table when she saw Helena Sgouros running toward them.
“Fisher’s missing,” she told Ying. “So is Dawes.”
Sgouros nodded. “Witnesses placed them by the hoops a few hours ago. No one’s seen them since.”
Desai flipped open her communicator. “Desai to Fisher. Desai to Fisher, please respond.” Nothing.
“Dawes isn’t answering, either,” Sgouros said. “If they’ve turned off their comms, they must be in the rain forest.”
Ying cursed. “It’s Aole Miller all over again.” To Sgouros, she said, “We need to start organizing search parties.”
“My people are already rounding up volunteers,” answered New Anglesey’s head of security. “They’re meeting at the dome.”
“Good,” Ying said. “Take Desai into custody and confine her.”
“What?” Desai said, as Sgouros drew her sidearm.
“It’s for your own good, Captain,” Ying said.
“The hell it is. You can’t—”
“I can and I will,” Ying snapped. “This is our world, and Starfleet people with no understanding of Kadru have no business venturing into places they don’t belong, and where they aren’t welcome. If that wasn’t clear to you before, I trust it is now.” She showed her comm device to Sgouros. “Home in on my transponder signal and catch up to me after she’s been secured.”
“Understood.” Ying took off at a run, and Sgouros gestured with her stun pistol. “Start moving, Captain.”
Led away at gunpoint, Desai endured the humiliation of being marched through town as Sgouros’s prisoner. “Where are we going?”
“Just keep walking,” Sgouros advised, eventually directing Desai through a side street near the edge of town, to a lot filled with several windowless sheds and construction equipment. They stopped at a structure bearing a sign that read, THERMOCONCRETE.
With her pistol leveled at Desai, Sgouros used her free hand to unlock the shed. She yanked on the metal door, and it swung outward with a loud creak. The shed was half empty, the walls on either side stacked with sacks of powdered building material, each one looking as if it weighed at least fifty kilos—nothing Desai could use to break out once she was locked in.
“Inside,” Sgouros ordered.
So don’t get locked in, Desai told herself as she crossed the threshold.
She waited until she heard the creak of the door starting to close. Then she spun around, pivoted on one leg, and kicked out sideways with the other. With a loud crack the door swung back outward, slamming into Sgouros’s face.
Desai charged out, tackling the dazed head of security. She pressed her advantage, seizing hold of Sgouros’s wrist and banging her hand repeatedly against the pavement until she released her grip on the weapon.
But Sgouros was already regaining her wits, shifting as if she were preparing to roll Desai off. Desai thrust the heel of her palm sharply against the taller woman’s temple, and Sgouros’s head lolled to one side as she lost consciousness.
Desai moved into a crouch and relieved Sgouros of her comm unit. She scrolled through the personnel list, searching the more than three hundred names until she saw the one she wanted: DAWES, OCTAVIA.
She tried opening a channel. Nothing. She selected the tracking function, and the unit’s display gave her a map of the local terrain, with a blinking arrowhead in the center. Rising numbers in one corner of the display ticked off the increasing distance. Dawes was on the move.
And as Sgouros had predicted, the arrowhead pointed straight into the rain forest.
Desai recovered Sgouros’s weapon and set off at a run.
Hang on, Fish. I’m coming.