They didn’t understand the urgency in his tone, but there was no reason to deny his request. Within moments, he was saying, “Lyla. Access the shipboard visual log. I keep a visual log of everything that goes on on in my ship,” he said to them in an offhand way.
“That is fairly standard operating procedure for Starfleet,” said Soleta. “Perhaps you should consider a career in the fleet.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” he said with unexpected vehemence. “Lyla, do you have it?”
“Of course, Xyon,” her voice came back.
“Put an image of Riella on the screen over here, would you, please?”
“Coming through now, Xyon.”
The viewscreen on the runabout rippled for a moment, and then the picture of a young girl appeared on it. Her skin was rather pale, and she had an odd bump on her forehead as if something had been there before but no longer was.
Slowly Si Cwan approached the screen. His face was utterly impassive, but it was clear to the others that he was forcing himself to maintain that cool exterior, particularly when he extended his hand toward the screen. His hand was trembling, betraying the emotions roiling through him. He touched the screen gently, as if afraid that somehow the image upon it would ripple and disappear if he touched it too forcefully.
“Kally,” he whispered.
“Who?”
He turned to Xyon. “What did you call her? What name?”
“Uhm … Riella,” said the plainly confused Xyon.
Si Cwan shook his head. “No. No, her name is Kalinda. Kally, we … I call her. She is my sister.”
“Your sister? But she doesn’t look like—no. No, of course.” Clearly it was all making sense to Xyon even as he spoke. She underwent some sort of treatment, some sort of conditioning. It changed her appearance. That’s possible, isn’t it?” He turned to Soleta since she appeared to be the most likely to have an answer to that question.
She nodded slowly. “Yes. It is possible. But the maintaining of the … ‘illusion,’ as it were would vary, depending on how it was done. She might very well have had to undergo some sort of continuing treatment.”
“What would the treatment have been like?”
“Hard to say. Some sort of radiation process, perhaps. If cellular regenesis was utilized, the daily ingestion of certain extracts would perpetuate it. Absent those, however, the subjects own DNA would reinforce itself and the facade would begin to dissipate.”
“So, if her mother was keeping it going—”
“Her mother?” Si Cwan shook her head. “Her mother-—our mother—is dead. I held her in my arms when she passed away.”
“It is becoming rapidly obvious that we will not have all the answers until we have caught up with the girl. Where is she?” asked Soleta.
“I’ll tell you as soon as you fix my ship.”
Si Cwan moved so quickly that Xyon never even saw him coming. One moment Xyon was just standing there, and the next Si Cwan had both hands on the young man’s chest and had hoisted him off his feet, thumping him up against the bulkhead. “Don’t issue conditions if you prefer to breathe,” he snarled as his calm exterior cracked. “Where is she? Where is she?” and he thudded him against the wall once more for emphasis.
But Xyon wouldn’t back down. “You want her? Then help repair my ship. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can find her.”
“We can take it in tow and fix it en route,” Soleta said quickly, obviously seeking the fastest compromise to forestall further violence. “Will that suffice?”
“How do I know, once I tell you the heading, that you won’t just cut and run? Leave my ship. Leave me.”
“You have my word,” Soleta said, “as a duly authorized repre—”
“I want his word,” Xyon said, inclining his head towards Si Cwan.
Si Cwan growled low in his throat, and then released Xyon. The young man landed lightly on his feet. He straightened his clothes and looked imperiously at Cwan, waiting.
“You have my word,” said Cwan. “As if I have a choice.”
“I don’t recall your asking my preferences when you were throwing me around a few moments ago,” Xyon pointed out. He clapped his hands briskly. “All right. Set our course for Star designated 7734, and let’s get to work on my ship.”
“Star 7734?” Soleta said, sounding mildly confused. “But there’s—”
“Nothing there, yes, I know. But that’s where she’s heading, or at least where she believes this Quiet Place is. If she’s the one you want, that’s where we’re going.”
“If you are lying …” Si Cwan warned him.
Xyon turned towards Si Cwan and said impatiently, “Has it occurred to you that I might actually be anxious to find her, too? My own neck has been on the line in all this, believe it or not. Just to clue you in, I was willing to sacrifice my life to save her. And I saved her from the Dogs of War, too.”
“I see.” Si Cwan studied him a moment. “But you’re still here, so obviously you didn’t sacrifice your life. And who has her now?”
“The Dogs of War,” admitted Xyon.
“It sounds to me, then, as if you haven’t been doing a particularly good job.”
“Hopefully, I’ll be able to live up to your exacting standards,” Xyon said sarcastically.
Si Cwan ignored the sarcasm and said, “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
* * *
In the meantime …
… elsewhere …
In his ship—a small vessel of his that he had salvaged from his days as a Thallonian noble—Zoran stared fixedly at the transmission signal coming over his scanner.
It had been a testament to Zoran’s skill as a pilot, and the quality of his tracking equipment, that he had been able to keep so far back from the Dogs of War that they had not detected his presence. The subcutaneous tracking device that remained lodged beneath Kalinda’s skin was sending out a steady signal fortunately, considering that the rest of the antennae graft had fallen off. Only the implant bump remained. Fortunately, that was where the tracking device was.
The Montos experiment had been a complete disaster. He had sought to handle the princess carefully, craftily, and had gone to great effort to do so.
He had been certain that, sooner or later, she would receive the Summons. And like many others, he sought the powers and secrets that were legendarily part of the Quiet Place. But Kalinda had always been a stubborn little cretin, and he had been certain that she would be less than cooperative with his plans. It was possible that, even upon receiving the Summons, if she had known that would lead Zoran there, she would have resisted the call. Of course, if one resisted it for too long, it could rend one’s mind to ribbons and leave the subject a blithering idiot who would remain little more than an empty shell for the rest of her wretched life.
But Zoran had been willing to take that chance.
He had employed the services of a psi-surgeon to implant an imagined history for Kalinda. Everything that she remembered of her life on Montos—her childhood, her loving mother, all of it—was mere fiction. The expert geneticist had done the rest, transforming her into a passable Montosian, with Malia’s daily tonic providing the stability that the process needed to maintain itself. The plan had served a twofold function. It neatly kept Kalinda hidden away from the efforts of her annoying brother to find her. And it enabled her to live an easily observable life while Zoran, through Malia, waited for some sign of the Summons to manifest itself.
Which it had. With a vengeance.
But it had all come unraveled. Even with her false identity of Riella firmly in place, Kalinda had proven too intractable, too difficult to control. She had never fully trusted the woman she had believed to be her mother, not really. And with the intervention of the Dogs of War, the entire plan had come undone. Sumavar. Who would have thought that Sumavar, that tough old warrior, the one who had put Zoran together with the geneticist … who would have thought Sumavar would prove to be the weak link?
 
; Zoran had not killed Sumavar after he had served his need (as he had done with the geneticist and the psisurgeon) out of a sense of loyalty and apparently misplaced confidence. And this debacle was a hard-learned lesson about the pointlessness of softer emotions. It was not one that Zoran would soon forget.
Fortunately, the tracking device provided him a failsafe. Wherever Kalinda was brought, that was where Zoran would be.
And soon the secrets of the Quiet Place, whatever they were, would be his, and only his.
XIII
“THERE’S NOTHING HERE. Can I kill her now?”
Krul’s obvious irritation seemed well founded, indeed, there appeared to be nothing of remote interest nearby Star 7734. It was a fairly bright star, but no planets had come into formation, nor did there seem to be anything particularly suggestive for the renowned Quiet Place.
They were standing upon the bridge of Rier’s personal cruiser. Carrying a crew complement of seventy, it was the sister ship to the one that had been destroyed back on Barspens, and he had kept it primarily in reserve. But the botched mission on Barspens had forced him to make use of it. He kept telling himself that that was what spares were for, nevertheless it didn’t sit well with him. On the view screen, Star 7734 sat there in space, continuing to appear no more interesting than it had when they first arrived.
“Bring the young lady to us,” Rier said coolly.
Moments later Riella was standing before Rier. She didn’t even seem to be paying much attention to him, her focus was on the rather boring star in front of them.
“Thus far,” he said, “I am not impressed. For your sake, it would be best if you could impress me, sooner rather than later.”
He wondered if she had even heard him. He was about to repeat himself, which was not something he was accustomed to doing, when she pointed to her right. “That way,” she said.
The Dogs glanced at each other. “In space, we generally prefer something a bit more specific than pointing and saying, ‘That way,’ ” Rier informed her.
“If you want to put me in a small ship, so that I can go there and you can follow me, feel free.”
“So that you can attempt to bolt? I don’t think so.”
“If you’re that stupid that you would think I would try to outrace you—”
Rier stepped in close to her then, and the gaze from his black eyes lanced into her without so much as a hint of pity. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “you’ve mistaken my patience for weakness. My civility for actually being civilized. Make no mistake. I’d as soon tear you apart myself as look at you. You can only act fearlessly because I’ve given you that luxury. If I choose to, I can make certain that you feel very, very afraid. Have I made myself clear?”
He waited for her to argue, for he knew at that moment that the slightest wrong word from her, and he’d tear a chunk out of her face just to amuse himself. But instead, she offered no protest, no sarcastic or defiant word. She simply said, “Yes,” so neutrally that it was impossible for him to take it at anything other than face value (although he very much suspected that it was meant as anything but).
He considered the situation a moment and then said, “If I put you at a navigation station, do you think you could navigate us wherever you wish to go?”
“I’ve no experience with it at all.”
“Then you’re going to learn on the fly. Omon,” he called to the Dog who was seated at navigation. “Work with our passenger here as best you can. See if you can reach some mutual agreement as to where we’re headed … before I become bored with her.”
If she was intimidated by the thinly veiled threat of that last comment, she didn’t let it show at all. Instead she walked over to the navigation station. For some minutes, Omon showed her the basics, and she nodded steadily in comprehension. It was something of a crash course, but she kept nodding steadily. “Do you truly understand all of this?” Omon asked her at one point. “You said you’ve never done anything like this before.”
“I know. I haven’t. But nevertheless it seems … vaguely familiar. I’m not sure why it does, but it does.” She paused a moment, and then pointed and said, “Here. At 418 Mark 3. Take us over there, but slowly. Very slowly. I don’t want to rush us into anything.”
“Very considerate,” Rier said. “Omon. Is there anything where she’s indicating?”
“A nebula. That’s all.”
“Sensor probes?”
“Less than effective with a nebula.”
Rier nodded. He knew that, of course. Still, he felt he had to ask.
As the ship inched towards the nebula, Rier’s brow furrowed as he studied it. It did not look unique. It was a standard issue, gaseous nebula, as near as he could tell. A gigantic cloud of gas and raw cloud material, but that was all.
“Sensor sweep, as much as you can discern,” said Rier. He took a step closer to the screen, as if somehow the additional proximity would make a difference.
Atik checked the sensor array. “Still nothing. I’m not …”
The fact that his voice trailed off was enough to command Rier’s attention. “What is it?”
“Getting something, on the outer rim of the nebula … dead ahead. Except …” He shook his head. “This isn’t possible.”
“What isn’t?”
“The sensors are telling me now that it’s not there.”
“Impossible. Either it’s there or it’s not. It can’t be there and not there.”
“It’s possible that it could,” Atik said reasonably. “If there’s some sort of field distortion, the planet itself could be in a state of quantum flux somehow. Or it could be something as simple as the make-up of the nebula itself. The cloud could be bouncing our tactical signals back at us, causing a sort of … of ghost planet.”
“And no one has ever detected this ‘ghost planet’ out here before?”
Atik shook his head. “A simple charting sweep of the region wouldn’t necessarily detect it. The nebula is thousands of miles wide. You’d have to know exactly where you’re looking, and even then—”
“All right, all right,” Rier waved off further discussion impatiently. Instead he turned to Riella. “Is that it? Is that the Quiet Place?”
He excepted some sort of cryptic response, but instead she simply nodded.
“It is?”
“Yes.”
“Focus full sensor probes on that world!” ordered Rier. “If there’s some sort of cover, if there’s something resisting our probes, punch through it!”
The nebula was becoming more and more distinct on the screen the closer they got, and Rier could even make out the general outlines of the planet. The screen began to fuzz over slightly, but Atik made some adjustments and the picture snapped back into view.
Unfortunately, that was all Atik was able to accomplish. He shook his head in frustration and said, “I’m not getting anything on it now. It’s like a sensor black hole. It’s absorbing all my probes and not giving anything back.”
“Assemble a team,” Rier said. “Transport them down and they can see what is and isn’t there.”
Omon turned to Rier and said, “Are you sure that’s wise?”
Immediately, there was dead silence among the half-dozen dogs on the bridge. All eyes went to Rier as he said very calmly, very dangerously, “Are you questioning me, Omon?”
“No,” Omon said immediately.
Slowly Rier nodded. “Good. That would be unfortunate.”
“I know.”
The pack, consisting of three dogs, was quickly assembled and brought to the transporter room. They stood there on the transporter pad, dressed in environmental suits since none of them had the slightest idea whether the planet could support life or not—although, considering the conditions around it, it seemed rather unlikely.
“Remain in constant touch,” Rier said, pacing back and forth slowly. Riella was standing off to the side, saying nothing, as he continued, “If there is the slightest problem, we will bring you back up. If we d
on’t hear from you, we will bring you back up.”
“Will you be able to maintain transporter lock even though we’re having troubles with our sensors?” asked one of the Dogs. He didn’t seem challenging; just a bit apprehensive. Truly, it was hard to blame him.
Rier glanced to the transporter chief, who nodded. “I am told that we will,” Rier said confidently. “Good hunting.”
The pack snapped off a salute and moments later the transporter beams flared to life. The dogs dissolved in a burst of molecules …
… and immediately ricocheted back.
It happened with no warning at all, and the transporter chief yelped out, “Something’s wrong! They’re coming right back! And their patterns are all over the place, I can’t lock down, I can’t—!”
What appeared on the transporter pad then did not look remotely like the pack who had been standing there a moment earlier. It was all three of them, slammed together as if redesigned by an insane child with a Dogs-of-War-parts kit. One of them was making something vaguely akin to a howling noise, while the others were just flailing about, an arm here, a leg there, a finger protruding from the eye of one of them. A huge, throbbing, gelatinous mass of fur and bone with a pulse.
“Get it out!” shouted Rier. “Beam it into space! Beam it anywhere! Get it off the ship!”
The abomination that had once been three individual dogs vanished before it became fully formed. Rier gasped in revulsion over what he had seen, and then he turned on Riella and snarled, “Did you know that was going to happen!”
“No.”
“Did you think it might?”
“I thought it possible, yes.”
He waved his paws around in fury. “Then why didn’t you say so!”
“You didn’t ask.”
He tried to contain his fury over her calm answer, and failed. Instead his arm lashed out, struck her across the chest, and knocked her down. She fell against the wall, but didn’t utter a sound. Instead she just stared blandly up at him, as if daring him to do it again … or, more likely as if she didn’t care whether he did it again or not.