RAKATAN'S SUN rose grudgingly out of charcoal clouds, its sullen fire picking fragments of twisted wreckage out of an encircling sea of red-gray mud. Even as Uhura watched, braced on her elbows in the crumpled hatch, a shard of nacelle housing shifted and disappeared. She made a wordless sound of dismay as her last hope of freeing Sulu sank with it. There was no way she could find the lost medical kit in this swamp.
"Any luck fixing the communicator?" Already mud-stained to the thighs, Sulu clung to the outside of the shuttle with both hands to keep from sinking in the ooze that had saved them. Although he spoke to Uhura, his gaze slid inevitably behind her, drawn like iron to Israi's silent magnet.
"No," Uhura answered, in a voice almost as toneless as his. "All the circuits are burned out."
Sulu grunted. "Then we're going to have to walk out of here. The mud is only bad around the shuttle. Away from it, there's a hard crust we can walk on, and a sort of shoreline not too far away."
Uhura pulled herself through the hatch, balancing carefully on what remained of the starboard nacelle. Gamow canted steeply beneath her, its blunt nose buried in a mud-softened impact crater. The shuttle's main cabin was buoyed up by the nacelle beneath her feet, but the other side, from which Sulu had jettisoned the port nacelle, had sunk deep into the churned-up mud. From the occasional bubbling noises that swam up through the metal hull, Uhura suspected the ship was still slowly sinking.
She stood on tiptoe to peer across the top of the shuttle, but from this angle all she could see was the shredded metallic lacing of the disruptor blast in the roof. "How far is the shore from here?"
"Less than a hundred meters." Sulu stepped up on the nacelle behind her and pointed to the right, where a pale gray bluff of volcanic rock ended the sprawl of mud. Thunderheads loomed in the sky beyond it, shrouding the crest of Rakatan Mons in a dark cloak of clouds. "The mudflat is long, but not very wide."
"That's because it's really an abandoned river channel." Mutchler wriggled his head out of the empty hatch beside them and eyed the surrounding mudscape with professional interest. "Probably left over from the last ice age, when Rakatan got a lot more rain than it does now." He leaned down and scraped a drying curl of clay from the mudsplashed shuttle, rubbing it to reddish dust between his fingers. "Hmm. Smectite and montmorillonite. About what you'd expect from weathered volcanic ash."
Uhura exchanged amused looks with Sulu, relieved to see a glint of his usual humor beneath the somber mask Israi had made of his face. If there was anything short of impending disaster that could distract a scientist from making scientific observations, Uhura had yet to find it. "Are you ready to go, Dr. Mutchler?"
"Oh, no. I want to salvage my seismic monitor first." He wriggled back into the shuttle before they could haul him out. "Don't worry, it's portable."
Something bulky and Starfleet red tumbled out of the hatch as soon as he was gone. With a gasp, Uhura recognized it as the bundle of survival packs she'd put together while waiting for the sun to rise. She snatched at it, spurred by a horrid vision of all their food sinking under the mud, and managed to catch it by one strap just before it hit the clay.
"Uhura, why do you allow that rock-grubbing insect even to speak?" Israi's voice demanded from somewhere inside the shuttle. Another bundle of blankets slid out the hatch before Uhura could drop the one she held. Fortunately, Sulu caught that one. "He has been witless beyond helping since first we met him."
Uhura frowned, finding a dry place on the nacelle for the survival kits. "How do you know that?"
"Because he babbles in words that make no sense." Uhura heard an indignant yelp from inside, and then a third package sailed out the hatch. This time it consisted of Scott Mutchler's field pack, belted with hammers, sledges, and a specialized tricorder.
Uhura sighed. "Israi, all that means is that your language has no equivalents for the scientific words he uses."
"Humph." Israi appeared in the collapsed hatch and dropped the last piece of salvageable equipment—Chekov's Klingon disruptor—into Uhura's hands. The Dohlman regarded the expanse of red-gray mud around them, then turned her intent gaze on Sulu. The pilot let out a quiet sigh, then pulled in another breath and held it tight, as if her nearness both calmed and disturbed him. Oh, Chekov, Uhura thought, I wish you were here to help me cope with this.
"You can get me out of here, bondsman?" the Dohlman demanded.
"Yes."
Israi nodded and swung herself through the hatch without another word. Her angular face had lost much of its aggressive uncertainty, Uhura saw. Instead, her almond eyes glittered with a new and serene confidence, born of knowing that men would now die for her. The expression made her look intensely like her older sister, Elaan.
In matching silence, Sulu slung the bundle of blankets over his shoulder and stepped forward to lift the small Dohlman in his arms. It apparently never occurred to him, Uhura thought wryly, that Uhura might not be the best one to support Mutchler's lurching steps through the mud.
An unfamiliar alarm went off inside the wrecked shuttle, a thin rising whine like a wasp's warning buzz. Uhura threw a bewildered glance at Sulu and saw his equally baffled head-shake. Then Mutchler cursed in a voice that barely sounded like his own. Uhura could hear him scrabbling frantically across the floor toward them, his splinted leg dragging behind him.
"We've got to get out of here, now!" The geologist wrestled himself through what was left of the hatch, his resin-epoxy splint catching painfully against one edge. Pain crashed white across his narrow face, but Mutchler hauled himself free despite it, half-falling and half-vaulting down to a mercifully soft landing in the mud. Uhura leaned out to steady him when he swayed, and he slewed around to catch her by the shoulder, his thin fingers digging hard through her uniform jacket. "There's been an earthquake near the summit! If we get caught in this damned thixotropic mud when the surface waves get here—"
The panic in the geologist's voice told Uhura more than the unfamiliar words. She slapped his field pack into his hands and shrugged the bundle of survival kits over her own shoulders, then plunged into the mud beside him so he could use her as a crutch. The wet clay dragged at her feet, sludge-thick and determined to cling to her boots. In minutes, she had sunk so deep that each step became a battle.
"Hurry!" Mutchler groaned, as if she and not he were the one lagging behind. The thin air of Rakatan had already broken Uhura's breath into ragged gasps that burned against her ribs. Mercifully, the geologist seemed to be less affected by the lack of oxygen. Perhaps he was used to it. "We don't have much time!"
They labored through the mud at a heartbreakingly slow pace. Sulu had already rounded the shuttle ahead of them, grimly determined to see his Dohlman safe at all costs. Israi, however, had not lost track of them. She cast a frowning look back at Uhura over the helmsman's shoulder.
"Have you forgotten the one of your cohort you gave death to in the shuttle?" she demanded. "You wouldn't leave his unburned body for the crows?"
Mutchler saved Uhura from having to answer that. "There are no crows on this damned planet!" he snarled. "Get it through your empty Elasian head—if we don't get out of this mud in the next two minutes, we're going to die!" The geologist groaned as his splinted leg caught on some snag beneath the mud. "And all because you don't want to get your glorious feet muddy," he added, soft but vehement enough for her to hear.
Israi spat at him in wordless fury, then shocked Uhura by twisting out of Sulu's grip to land in a staggering splash of mud. "No!" She shoved the pilot back when he would have picked her up again. "Go back and help that idiot geologist. I order you!"
Sulu scowled and picked her up anyway, but only to toss her a meter toward the shore, out of the shuttle's impact crater. She landed on a stiff scum of drier clay that cracked and grumbled beneath her weight, but held firm. The helmsman didn't wait to see if she stayed or went on. He turned back and helped Uhura tug Mutchler's leg free of the sucking clay that now engulfed them to their knees.
"I'll drag him by the shoulders," Sulu said curtly. "You hold up his broken leg."
Uhura nodded, too winded to bother with words, and bent to her task. Despite their rough handling, Mutchler seemed impervious to pain. "Hurry!" he urged again, his voice cracking with desperation. Uhura heard the now-familiar roar of tearing earth, far away but getting closer. Memories of the Dohlman's collapsing quarters crashed over her, and lent her aching legs new strength. "Hurry!"
With one last, lung-tearing effort, Uhura helped heave the geologist up onto the drier crust of the mud. It broke beneath their combined weight, like the thin edge of newly frozen ice. Mutchler's breath hissed in pain as part of Uhura's weight fell on his broken leg. Cursing, Sulu shoved the younger man up onto the hard surface again. This time, it held him.
"Thank the Lord—" Uhura moved a careful meter away before hauling herself out. Sulu did the same thing on the other side.
Mutchler struggled up onto his elbows stubbornly. "We're not safe, not until we're up on those rocks. Help me up."
She groaned, but went to help Sulu hoist him to his feet. Surprisingly, Israi had waited for them. Without a word, the Dohlman of Elas pulled the geologist's field pack from his shoulder, then turned and started running for the ridge. The rest of them followed at the best pace they could manage.
The first shock waves hit while they were still on the crusted mud. Uhura felt the swaying, sealike motion of the clay and heard it sigh beneath them as it shifted. Instinctive panic thundered through her at the thought of being stuck in the engulfing morass again. She forgot her burning lungs and aching legs, forgot the heavy, clinging jackets of mud on her boots. With a gasp of utter terror, she grabbed at Mutchler and dragged him toward the shoreline ridge.
They made it with only moments to spare. Uhura collapsed against the blessedly gritty and solid rock face, barely feeling the tug when Israi pulled her up to safety. More shock waves chased across the mud crust after them, but they dampened out when they hit the ridge, giving them only a slight shaking. Cracks followed the crests of each wave, twining and intertwining until, with a vast, moaning grumble, the entire lake of mud bubbled and turned itself liquidly over.
"Oh, my God—" In the center, the shuttle pitched and sank beneath the mud with a breathtaking suddenness. Uhura blinked, barely able to believe what she had seen. A last set of shock waves shivered through the red-gray clay, this time slapping foamy wavelets against their ridge. There could be no doubt. The mud that had cushioned and supported them a few minutes ago now sloshed like water beneath their feet.
"Thixotropic clay." Mutchler's voice may have been shredded with shock and pain, but it remained stubbornly pedantic. "Solid under long-term stress, liquid under a sudden shock. It always causes the most damage in an earthquake."
"I know," Sulu said bleakly. Uhura felt him shudder where his shoulder pressed against hers, and wondered if it was the nearness of death or the memory of how he'd first responded to the threat of it that bothered him. Even now, the pilot had one arm wrapped around Israi's bare shoulders in an unwilling but fiercely protective embrace.
The Dohlman took a deep breath and lifted her head, scrubbing at her cheeks with muddy hands. "Idiot geologist, you were right about the earthquake coming," she admitted with immense reluctance. "I—I wish I hadn't called you witless."
As close as a Dohlman could ever come to an apology, Uhura guessed in half-hysterical amusement. She glanced over her shoulder to see if Mutchler appreciated Israi's grand gesture, only to see the geologist staring transfixed up at the crest of Rakatan Mons. If he'd heard Israi, he gave no sign of it.
"What is it?" Uhura demanded, alarmed by his odd silence. "Dr. Mutchler, what's the matter?" And then, as she saw the way the muscles clenched in his bloodless cheeks, "Is it your leg?"
Mutchler made a painful sound, something between a bitter laugh and a gasp. "My leg is the least of our problems. Look there. The earthquake must have set it off."
Uhura followed his shakily pointing finger and blinked, unable at first to take in what she was seeing. Above the liquid expanse of shivering mud, dark clouds had congealed around the distant crest of Rakatan Mons. Lightning spit faint flashes through them, but they looked too thick and wrinkled to be thunderclouds. Even as Uhura watched, another ruffled wall of black curled up from behind the rest, and this time she saw the telltale glint of volcanic fire exposed for one brief moment in its heart.
"Oh, my God." The realization kicked inside her stomach like an exploding rocket. "The volcano's erupting."
"Only spineless human worms would think up a plan so inefficient and crude."
Chekov kept his eyes locked on the turbulent scenery outside the flyer window, and willed his face to stay impassive. Considering he'd only made up this plan a few hours ago, with the threat of a Klingon agonizer hanging over his face, the efficiency of it seemed nothing short of miraculous. It was good enough to get you this far, he thought at Oben bitterly. And the plan only had to work a short while longer.
"It isn't inefficient." Chekov tried to sound brusquely disdainful, but had a feeling he only sounded scared. "We took the geologist to this seismic station in the first place so that we could establish the details of our rendezvous plan."
Oben made a face and lounged in his seat near the front of the flyer's passenger cabin. "The Mutchler geologist said he was doing repairs."
"He lied." Just like I'm lying now. "We left a recording device there so that we could leave messages for each other if we became separated. If my Dohlman hasn't already gone there to contact me, then I will at least be able to leave instructions for her to find when she reaches the station later. I can tell her to meet me anywhere you say. Or lead you to wherever she is waiting for me."
"You would do this?" Oben asked, eyes narrowed. "Betray your Dohlman and your cohort?"
Chekov swallowed hard against a shiver of remembered fear, and turned back to the flyer window. "All my Dohlman can do is kill me," he said softly, intentionally echoing Oben's words from the night before.
The guardsman laughed darkly, but asked him nothing further.
Outside the flyer's window, clouds the color of smoke smeared the landscape to a minimalist blur. Chekov had watched the first rolling thunderhead sweep down on them when they were barely north of the mining complex, only to realize it wasn't rain pattering against his window when a dark layer of ash caught and built up in a crescent along the trailing edge. He'd wondered then if Rakatan Mons normally spit up such volumes of burnt material, but didn't think Oben would be predisposed toward answering his questions. For the first time since separating from the rest of the party, Chekov found himself wishing Dr. Mutchler were here.
"You are worse than the scientist maggots who feed off the corpse of this planet."
Takcas's voice startled Chekov. It was the first time the kessh had spoken to him since they were herded into the flyer's passenger compartment more than an hour ago. Coming out of his long silence after Chekov's supposed display of treachery, the big Elasian's words burned through him like fire.
"The science-maggots are honest in their weakness. They slink behind our backs to steal their rocks and readings—they make no attempt to curry our acceptance or walk upright among us."
It doesn't matter what you think of me, Chekov told Takcas silently, still staring out his window. Your understanding was never part of this plan. But his hands clenched within the manacles behind his back, and he couldn't stop a swell of frustrated anger from twisting his stomach full of acid.
"I am ashamed that we are both called kessh. Even a soft-bellied carrion crab would not betray its own for a few more moments of pitiful living." Seat leather creaked and hard Elasian boots struck decking as Takcas shifted and moved to stand. "I should do your Dohlman the favor of killing you, little tick, since you obviously haven't the dignity needed to kill yourself."
A crash of noise behind him jerked Chekov around, and he ended up facing the seats along the flyer's other wall just as Takcas slammed back against the bulkhead and sat down heavily. Oben stood over the kessh with one hand cocked back as though to strike again, the other poised on his disruptor while he waited to see if Takcas would fight. Takcas glowered hatefully up at the other Elasian, but didn't try to stand again. Chekov had to grip the cushion of his own seat to keep himself from leaping up to interfere.
"What a brave dog you are," Oben commented acidly. He kicked Takcas's feet out of the narrow aisle, then went back to his own seat at the front of the compartment. "You bark loudly for someone who is only here to flush out Israi if she refuses to come when I call for her."
"So you claim." Takcas rolled to his knees with surprising grace considering his hands were manacled behind his back just like Chekov's. "But I am not like you and this gutless parasite—I will not betray my sworn mistress."
"You do not have to choose to betray anyone. Under the right inducement, you scream as well as any parasite." Oben propped his feet up on a sliver of window frame and smiled evilly. "You forget, Kessh Takcas—I know."
What could only have been deep humiliation darkened Takcas's face to the color of tea. Chekov leaned across the seat back in front of him, suddenly unable to sit in brooding silence any longer. "Why don't you use that agonizer on yourself?" he snarled, nodding at the tiny device hanging in wait on Oben's belt. "Show us how bravely you don't scream while it strips you down to nothing."
"Stop it!" Takcas lunged across the aisle, face still red, and came to his knees on the floor next to Chekov to meet his startled gaze eye-to-eye. This time, Oben only sighed with weary disinterest and made no move to separate them. "I want no words from you in my defense! You sit here in silence, unable to explain away even your own filthy cowardice, then you wish for me to be grateful when you rise up to strike at my enemies! No! I vomit on your sympathy! I spit on your deceit!"
Chekov could only stare at Takcas while his own face burned. Lying, he thought in an agony of frustration. If only I were a better liar, I could think of something—anything!—to say. Instead, he clenched his jaw around his silence and remained painfully aware of just how much he would despise anyone who did what Takcas believed he was doing right now.
Beneath them, the flyer began its swift, even descent, and ash hissed like rain against the outside bulkhead.
"Go ahead," Chekov told Takcas dully. He just wished it didn't hurt so much to see the fierce disgust on the Elasian's face. "I would do the same, if I were you."
Gold eyes met brown ones with such force that Chekov nearly looked away, ashamed of the scaffolding of lies he'd erected between them. Then, the instant before his resolve broke, he saw something move in those Elasian eyes like water under ice.
"Human!"
Breath catching in startlement, Chekov snapped his attention back to the front of the flyer. They'd opened the door between the passenger cabin and the cockpit, and another of his captors leaned through the narrow hatch to scowl across the craft at him.
"We are at the top of the cleft. Say if this is where you meant to take us."
He turned away from Takcas, just as glad for the distraction, and peered through the ash-fogged window to study the ground as it approached below them. "Yes." Drifting ash had obscured the FGS identifiers on the sides and roof of the tiny seismic station, but a tall stake with a placard reading<S Caps> NO.</S Caps> 3 at its top still canted awkwardly just off to one side. Chekov had tried righting that sign while he and Sulu waited for Mutchler to install the laser sensor yesterday, but it had stubbornly resisted fixing. Now it seemed to stand there in effigy of all the other things around him that might be past the point of repair. "You'll find a landing area one hundred meters east of the station."
Then something struck him hard from behind, catching him at waist level and throwing him to the deck between the seats. Chekov tried to turn himself, but the space was too short and narrow, the sudden weight on top of him too heavy for him to displace without anything to brace himself or hands to help him. He met the deck facedown, and felt the heavy thump of the flyer touching down just as a growl of warm breath hissed next to his ear.
"Forgive my ignorance and my violence, Kessh Chekov," Takcas whispered, almost too quickly and softly to be understood. "But I can't let Oben know that I speak to you now in friendship." Chekov felt the kessh wedge himself more firmly between the passenger seats as other Elasian voices tumbled frantically over them. "Whatever your plan is to free yourself—if it fails, I hope you may die bravely."
Chekov struggled onto his back while a half-dozen of the Elasian guards wrestled Takcas back and tackled him out of sight. "If you try to kill the human maggot again," Oben snarled from the front of the flyer, "there will be nothing left for your Dohlman to claim except your ravaged corpse!"
The snap of the agonizer's activation cells echoed through the little flyer. Chekov closed his eyes, shuddering, and waited breathlessly for the screaming to stop. Fighting would only make this worse, he told himself, and it wouldn't help Takcas, it wouldn't get them any closer to freedom. He wanted desperately to believe that lying here motionless was the best thing he could do for either of them.
But he wondered if Takcas appreciated how much Chekov hoped that, if his plan failed, he would simply be able to die—bravely or otherwise.