“Perhaps the gods . . . if such they be . . . feel that it is better late than never,” suggested Soleta.
“Perhaps. It is futile to speculate, I suppose. We are not to question the ways of the gods.”
“How eminently convenient for the gods” was Soleta’s wry observation.
“Spoken like a true skeptic.”
“I am someone who learns through observation. The existence of God, or gods, hinges not upon observation or quantifiable study, but upon faith. My faith is in science.”
“The universe, child, is too varied and multifaceted a thing to place the entirety of one’s faith in anything,” Rajari said. “If I have learned any one thing, it is that. You must leave yourself open to all experiences, for you never know what is going to present itself. A universe where anything is possible is a far more interesting place, don’t you think?”
He smiled at her.
He is a monster. A beast. He raped your mother. Do not trust him. Do not see something of your own smile, which you always hide, in his face. Perhaps his gods
Your gods. You are half Romulan.
. . . his gods choose to provide guidance and direction, but you are under no obligation to provide him anything. Get off Titan. Now. Before it’s too late.
“I do not even know your name,” Rajari said abruptly. “You have the advantage of me. What is your name?”
DON’T TELL HIM THAT!
“Soleta.”
You are a fool and an imbecile, and I’m not going to waste time talking to you anymore. And with that, Soleta’s inner voice stalked away.
“What will you do now, Soleta? Now that you have ascertained that I present no threat, will you depart? Or will you remain for a time?”
“What reason have I to stay?”
Rajari looked down for a moment, then back at her. “I do not have much longer,” he said. “A month. Two at most. The end, when it comes, will come quickly. My body will virtually collapse upon itself. Having someone to talk to . . . from time to time . . . might be nice.”
“You cannot be serious. You cannot possibly think that I am, in any way, your friend.” She shook her head. “Whatever you think you have become now, Rajari, I am still more than aware of what you were. That cannot be overlooked or forgiven, no matter how hard I try.”
“Spoken as someone who hasn’t tried at all, of course.”
“That is not the point.”
“Why do we not make it the point? Think of it another way, then. You wish to ascertain the safety of the mate of T’Pas. For all you know, I still pose a threat. After all, when one is dying, one does not have to be concerned about long-term consequences. But if you remain here until I am dead, you will then know firsthand, beyond any doubt, that whatever threat I may have posed is over.”
“That is true enough,” she admitted.
“Furthermore, you will have the chance to see me suffer. You will be able to see that the one who brought such strife upon T’Pas has come to his own horrible, fitting end. That will bring you some measure of satisfaction, will it not?”
She tried to decide if, in fact, it would. She was somewhat relieved to find that the answer was no, and she said as much.
He shrugged once more. “Have it your way, then. I will tell you what: I am going to leave now. I will return to my home, such as it is. I will return to this very table at precisely this time tomorrow. If you are here, fine. If you are not here, fine. I leave it in your hands. Yours . . . and the gods’.”
He rose from the table then, bowed slightly with his fingers interlaced, and left the bar.
It was at that point that Soleta knew it was time for her to leave. Rationalizations were already running rampant through her head. Here was a chance to make a fascinating scientific study of the nature of evil. Was anyone truly beyond redemption? Was it possible for the most despicable of creatures to change his nature?
And what of Soleta herself? The knowledge that she was half-Romulan had almost destroyed her. It had certainly forever corrupted her abilities to properly use the Vulcan disciplines that had been drilled into her. This would be an opportunity for her to fully study and understand the lineage that flowed within her blood, that she had tried to push away all this time. In getting a better grasp of the Romulan mind-set—particularly the mind-set of her biological father—it might serve to make her a better officer, a better person. It might—
Her internal voice, despite its earlier resolution to the contrary, came roaring back with a vengeance.
Are you insane? He RAPED YOUR MOTHER! Get the HELL OUT OF THERE! He’s not a matter of scientific curiosity! He’s not a means of self-exploration! He’s a BEAST, and all the rationalizations to excuse this morbid curiosity with your origins are not going to change that! Leave! Leave immediately! Leave right now! Leave yesterday if it is a temporal option! Leave, Soleta, right now. In the name of your mother’s memory, in the name of everything you hold dear, SET ASIDE YOUR INSATIABLE CURIOSITY, JUST THIS ONCE, AND GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!
When he showed up the next evening at the appointed time, she was not there.
He took his place at the table where they had once been, ordered a drink, and sat there contemplating it. And when Soleta sat down opposite him, he could not have been more surprised.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Actually,” she replied, “you were early.”
And so it began.
McHENRY & KEBRON
ALTHOUGH THERE HAD BEEN little indication in the city of a planet that was under any sort of alien siege, in the rural areas that Kebron and McHenry were investigating, they found a very different story.
The central government, i.e. “the Elders,” had very little to do with the area that was primarily farming territory. The farmers of Liten were hardy, rugged individualists who were accustomed to following their own ways and being left to their own devices. They sought no help, and got precisely what they sought.
However, now that the situation had arisen where they were living in constant mortal terror of alien visitation, they would not have minded some sort of government intervention.
“But it’s not going to happen,” said the Widow Splean, a feisty old Liten woman whom McHenry and Kebron were in the process of interviewing. She was the fifth Liten farmer they were speaking to that day. McHenry had had some initial concern that the Litens would feel some trepidation about talking to strangers. Naturally they would have felt even more trepidation had they known that the strangers they were speaking with were offworld alien beings, but the genetic surgery that had been practiced upon both McHenry and Kebron more than did the job of blending them in with the local populace (although there had been only so much that the Federation scientists could do with Kebron’s mass; then again, Kebron was supposed to be the muscle for this little expedition, so removing his greatest asset would have been folly).
“You mean the government is never going to take a hand in solving your problem?” McHenry inquired. He had identified himself and Kebron as special investigators aiding a Liten victimized by aliens, and that had been more than enough to prompt the locals to open their doors and hearts to him. He was sitting in the old woman’s living room. Kebron, as sociable as a virus, remained outside.
“Never. Because if the Elders decide to investigate, then that automatically means that they’re acknowledging a problem exists. That is the last thing they’d want to do.” The widow shook her head in annoyance. “We’ve no one to blame it on except ourselves, really. We’re independent stock, we farmers. We were arrogant enough to believe that we could handle whatever nature threw at us. But this . . . this business,” and she pointed heavenward apprehensively as if someone or something might descend from the sky at any moment. “This is unnatural. But will the Elders help us now that we really need them? Of course not,” she snorted disdainfully. “Why should they stick their necks out when it’s not their own lives on the line. People hereabouts are talking about selling their property, movin
g away. There are ‘For sale’ signs up all over.”
McHenry knew this himself, having seen some of them posted. He leaned forward, concerned. “Has anyone died as a result of all this? Have the aliens killed anyone?”
“Not to my knowledge,” she said, shaking her head, which seemed to be teetering uncertainly on her neck. “They just terrorize us. They cause property damage. They make hideous noises. They wave weapons around. It’s no way for people to live. No way at all.”
“Is there any one place that they tend to appear more than any other?”
“Not really. Because, naturally, if they did, then people would know simply to stay away from that one area, right?” Her light green hands fluttered aimlessly. “They can be anywhere, at any time . . . but the aliens mostly come at night. Mostly.”
“Have you ever seen them yourself?”
“No, thank God. But I’ve heard enough about them.”
“How do they arrive? In a burst of light? Or with a sort of . . . whistling sound?” He made a fair imitation of a transporter.
“No.” This time she shook her head so vigorously that McHenry thought it was going to fall off entirely. “No, they usually come, so I’ve heard, in a sort of . . . of spaceship. Blows the grass about something awful, and it moves so quickly. One minute it’s there, the next, vroooom! Gone!”
“That’s very interesting.”
She leaned forward and took his hands in hers. “Can you help us?” she said with an air of desperation. “Can you find a way?”
“I’m sure we can,” he said.
Moments later he was outside with Kebron. “Well?” said the disguised Brikar. He was scratching at the back of his neck. The genetic surgery was continuing to sit poorly with him.
“Same story as the others, with minor variations, including those who actually claim to have witnessed the ‘aliens.’” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “The only one whose story doesn’t match up, interestingly, is our ‘client.’ No one else has talked about blinding lights or disappearances.”
“Meaning . . .”
“Meaning that there are two possibilities. Either there are two entirely different sets of alien beings visiting this world . . . or else Adulux has been lying. Maybe he really did do something fatal with his wife, and he’s been using this entire alien-visitation thing to cover it. To produce some sort of credible cover story. That’s how he hoped to get away with it.”
“He was going to get away with it by jumping off a roof?” Kebron did not sound entirely convinced.
“Well, maybe by that point he thought he wasn’t going to get away with it. I don’t know.”
“No. You don’t.”
“And you do?” McHenry asked with a flash of impatience.
“No. But you’re the one talking.”
They had been walking down a dirt road, but now McHenry stopped and turned to face Kebron. “Then feel free to talk,” McHenry challenged him. “Tell me what you think. Put forward your own theories. If you think there’s any chance of tracking down these idiots who are terrorizing these people, or figure out what’s going on, then why don’t you come up with it right now instead of just being reticent or sarcastic? Well? Go ahead.” He folded his arms.
Kebron reached into his pocket and pulled out a tricorder. It seemed tiny in the palm of his hand.
“Incoming vessels have detectable ion signatures,” he said.
McHenry stood there feeling a bit foolish. “Oh. Right. And if they’re coming in vessels, like runabouts or something, we can use a tricorder to guide us to wherever they are.”
“Yes.”
“Instead of just having lengthy stakeouts and being somewhere other than where they are.”
“Yes.”
“That’s, uhm . . .” He rubbed his toe into the ground. “That’s actually a very good idea, Zak.”
“Yes.”
“Wish I’d thought of it.”
“You would have.”
Feeling slightly mollified by that, McHenry looked up and said, “Do you really think so?”
“No.”
When they met up with Adulux that night at the prearranged spot, their client had never looked more shaken. He did not hesitate to tell them why.
“They’re going to arrest me,” he said, sweat pouring from him like a geyser. “I know it. They questioned me again today, for hours. They’re asking all sorts of personal things about my life with Zanka. They’re building a case against me, piece by piece, and it doesn’t matter to them whether it’s true or not. They just want to make an arrest. The last thing they need is for some sort of connection to alien activities that the Elders want hushed up. I’m going to be arrested. Arrested, tried, condemned, all in the name of politics. Is there anything in the world worse than that?”
“Listening to you,” said Kebron.
Adulux was so flustered and flummoxed that Kebron’s comment didn’t even register. McHenry was grateful for that, and he took the agitated Liten firmly by the shoulders and said, “You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. We’ll find them. We have a device that’s going to help us.” He held up the tricorder. “This will tell us when the aliens are coming, and where they’re coming to.”
“That?” Adulux stared at it. “What is it?”
“It’s a gizmo,” McHenry told him.
“A gizmo,” Adulux said reverently, as if he’d just been presented with the Holy Grail in a nicely gift-wrapped box. “Can I hold the gizmo?”
“No,” said Kebron, but McHenry had already handed it to him. Kebron grunted in annoyance. Adulux, for his part, was turning the tricorder over and over, looking at it in wonderment. “It’s very impressive, the gizmo. What does this flashing light mean?”
“Flashing light? There shouldn’t be a flashing light unless . . .”
He took the tricorder back immediately and stared at it. He checked the readings with mounting enthusiasm, and then said to Kebron, “Company.”
“About time.”
“Company?” Adulux looked from one to the other, and then heavenward. “You mean they’re . . . it’s . . . they’re . . . ?”
“That’s right. Coming in fast. I read them at half a mile, north-northwest. Come on.”
Seconds later, they were in Adulux’s vehicle and tearing across the road toward the alien touchdown site.
There were three aliens, and as happenstance would have it, they had landed at the farm of the Widow Splean.
The old woman was on the porch of her house, screaming in protest, as the aliens marched about, howling and chattering and laughing uproariously. Two of them had thick, shaggy manes and piglike snouts, and were making hideous snorting noises. The third was blue-skinned with antennae and a look of utter contempt, not only for the world around him, but even to a degree for his companions.
Their ship having landed on the front lawn, they were in the process of demolishing the fence that the Widow Splean had erected with her husband several years previously. It had been the last thing they’d done together before he’d perished in that unfortunate threshing accident. The Widow Splean cried out in frustration, but the aliens paid her no mind.
“I’m getting my blaster!” she shouted at them, and turned to head back into her home to do that very thing. But the blue-skinned alien was cat-quick, and before she had gotten two steps toward her door, he was right there on the porch with her. He grabbed her by the arm and swung her around, and his remarkably white teeth were a stark contrast to the deep blue of his face. “I would not do that if I were you,” he said, and he pushed her off the porch. The widow went down with a strangled cry of protest, and he circled her while laughing contemptuously.
His associates, having demolished the fence, were now looking for other sport. Watching them nearby was a benign-looking farm animal, called a Furn, which customarily provided liquid sustenance on a daily basis. It was large and bulky and not really capable of running, even if it had had enough brains to do so in the face of imminent da
nger. The two piglike aliens headed toward the Furn for the amusement value of tipping the creature over. Once on its side, it would be utterly unable to right itself, and would likely die if someone did not get it back on its feet. The Widow Splean lacked the muscle power to accomplish this feat, and by the time she managed to get any neighbors over to help, the poor beast would likely have been done for. Not that the aliens cared.
“Please, just go! Go away! Don’t hurt my Furn! I’ve never done anything to you!”
The aliens laughed, the two piglike ones placing their hands firmly against the beast and preparing to shove.
And then a firm, clear voice said, “All right. That’s enough.”
The blue-skinned one, who had the best night vision, saw them first. It was three Litens, including one very large one, emerging from the darkness. The foremost one had spoken. “Leave her alone. Leave them all alone. It’s over.”
“It’s over?” The blue-skinned alien laughed at that. “Nyx, Quiv . . . look at this. We’re being told it’s over.”
“You’re not going to bother any of these people—”
“Us,” the larger one seemed to correct him.
“—bother any of us ever again,” said the Liten who was approaching him with an amazing lack of fear.
“He’s coming for you, Krave,” said the one named Nyx, calling an amused warning to the blue-skinned alien.
Krave was utterly unintimidated. He knew that the Litens were not only a fearful race, but also physically quite weak. They presented no threat whatsoever to a young Andorian in good shape. Whatever threat this new arrival might be presenting, it was bluster at most. Krave knew he could handle him. “I see him, Nyx.”
“You are being given one chance to depart . . . our . . . world without any further mishaps,” said the newcomer. “You must swear never to come back. And you must swear to return the female whom you stole.”
At that, Krave laughed. “You have no business dictating terms to us. And I don’t know what female you’re talking about.” Then his face darkened, and his antennae twitched in anticipation. “But what I do know is that you have made a very serious mistake. Very serious.”