THEY TRAVELED QUICKLY, and in silence, for the first hour. There was the unspoken understanding that it was important to try and cover as much distance as possible. Traveling during the day would not be a terribly pleasant experience with the desert sun beating down on them. Night was the time to cross the sands.
Sulu glanced at her every so often to make sure that she was keeping up. She seemed to have no trouble. At one point she stopped, removed her boots, and then continued walking. She actually moved faster barefoot. So much faster, in fact, that she passed him and Sulu quickly became aware that she could probably outdistance him with little trouble. She realized it at about the same time, apparently, and slowed down so that Sulu could keep up. She glanced at him as they drew side by side, and there was a degree of impishness on her face as they trudged up one sand dune and down another.
"You're very quick," he said finally, the first words spoken in over an hour.
She stopped and raised the soles of her feet for inspection. They looked hard as shoe leather. "I do a lot of walking," she said.
"So do I. Every morning. Although not barefoot, and not in conditions like this."
"I've crossed a desert or two in my time," she said.
"And what else have you done in your time?"
They got to the crest of a sand dune and Sulu slipped a bit going down it, but righted himself before he could fall over. "Well?" he said.
She looked at him curiously. "Well what?"
"Well what else have you done in your time? What's your time been spent doing?"
"This and that."
"And whatever it is you were ready to sell to Kelles … does that come under the category of 'this' or 'that'?"
She stopped walking and stared at him defiantly. "Don't be coy, Sulu. It doesn't suit you. You want to ask a question, ask it."
"All right. What is it you were trying to sell, and from whom did you steal it?"
Her gaze was level and she was quiet for a time. Then she said briskly, "None of your business."
He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Well that's helpful."
"The fact that you have to ask the question means that the answer is pointless."
"And the answer is—?"
"You won't believe me."
"Don't tell me what I will and won't believe." He stopped walking and waited. "Well?"
She kept walking. "I'm not going to tell you."
"I'm not moving until you do."
"Fine. Don't move then. To hell with you." She kept on going.
Sulu stayed exactly where he was, and was annoyed to find that he was admiring the sway of her hips and the way that her shoulder blades stood out against the back of her tight black shirt. Her hair swung pendulum-like as she strode away.
She got about a hundred feet, then came to a stop and sighed audibly. Then she turned around and walked back to Sulu, standing there with arms folded and reluctant amusement on her face.
"I don't know where I'm going."
"You mean short-term or long-term?"
She raised an eyebrow in a manner that eerily reminded Sulu of a certain Vulcan. "The latter depends somewhat on the former."
"True enough."
She sighed. "Okay. Come on."
He paused a moment to make sure that he understood her intent, and then he walked alongside her. As they continued their steady pace, Ling Sui licked her lips once—the only indication she gave that she was at all thirsty. "I'm freelance."
"Freelance? Freelance what?"
"Freelance whatever it takes. Freelance inventor, pilot, researcher, explorer … adventurer, for want of a better term. The technology I had to sell was invented by my current client."
"Your current client being—?"
"My current client being none of your damned business," she told him, although she didn't sound particularly angry when she said it.
"All right. Fair enough." They started up another sand dune. "Go on."
"My client had an assistant, name of Taine. I'm sure you remember him; he was trying to kill you a short while ago."
"He's somewhat fresh in my recollections, yes."
"Taine stole all the material related to my client's discovery. All the research, the findings … all of it. This is something one can accomplish when one is in a position of trust, as Taine was … although he's not anymore, as I'm sure you can surmise. This drove home to my client his vulnerability, not to mention the transitory nature of the exclusivity of discoveries. So he hired me to retrieve it: retrieve years and years' worth of computations, calculations, test results … more than my client could possibly have endeavored to reproduce simply from memory. Retrieve it … and line up a powerful buyer for it."
"If it was stolen, why didn't he just report it to the authorities?"
She looked at him in amusement. "You can't report matters to the authorities when there are questions connected that you'd rather not answer. Not all areas of research are 'approved,' Sulu."
"Was he involved with something dangerous?"
"By dangerous you mean would people become sick or die from it? No, not at all. Sometimes, though, things are forbidden. Once upon a time, it was heresy to suggest that the Earth revolved around the sun. But just because something is forbidden doesn't mean you don't have to investigate it anyway. Sometimes you do what you have to, even if the authorities would frown on it. Do you agree?"
Briefly Sulu's thoughts flew to the numerous times that James T. Kirk had stretched General Order 1 almost into unrecognizability. And yet somehow things had always managed to work out for the best, Kirk's instinct unerringly guiding them through the rocky shoals of Starfleet regs. Nor was Kirk unique; Mr. Spock (and who was more respectful of the logic of rules than a Vulcan?) had risked death to fly in the face of General Order 7.
But Sulu had never been in that position. He wondered what would happen if someday he was in a command situation and was asked to choose between orders and his sense of what was right and wrong. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before that did happen. He hoped he would do the right thing … or even be able to figure out precisely what the right thing was.
Yes … he knew he would figure it out. Because whatever it was, it would be the honorable thing. Right and wrong, rules and regulations—these things could be discussed and analyzed to death and even beyond. But honor was immutable. Honor was known. A question of honor was answered with as much clarity as the North Star.
"Yes … I agree," he said.
She looked surprised. "Hmmf. A Starfleet officer agreeing with that philosophy. Again you surprise me, Sulu. So … in any event, that's why I was brought into this. Because I wouldn't sit in judgment, and I wouldn't start quoting regulations or get involved in politics. I'd come in, do the job, and get out." She paused. "Except I didn't exactly do the job, it seems. I managed to steal the technology back from Taine, set up the meeting place for the sale to occur. And then the whole thing went straight to hell. Not your fault, though. Mine. Only mine."
"It was my fault, too. I …"
He paused, and she stopped walking and turned to look at him. "What's up with you, anyway?" she said in that slightly musical voice of hers. "There's something going on here, something you're not telling me. What is it? I've been as honest with you as I can . . . ."
"You'll laugh."
"Maybe," she agreed. "If it's stupid enough."
He stopped, sat down on a dune and pulled off his boots. Upending them, he watched sand pour out as he looked around their surroundings. "Is the entire Sahara like this?" he asked.
"Oh, no." She gestured. "This erg, for example …"
"Erg?"
"Sand dune. It's only, what? Ten meters high? There's ergs go as high as two hundred meters." At the expression on his face, she added, "Of course, it's not like the entire Sahara is nothing but ergs. After all, the damned thing's nine million square kilometers … as big as the United States. It's not all sand."
"No?"
"No," she said cheerfully. "Some places it's pebbles and gravel."
"Oh, well … that makes all the difference," Sulu acknowledged.
"So … what will I laugh at?"
"Oh." He'd hoped she'd forgotten. "Uhm … you're not going to find this easy to believe … but the whole thing back at the city? I thought it was a put-on."
"Put-on?" She shook her head, not understanding.
"I thought …" He sighed. "I was visiting with a friend … and I'd been complaining that there was no adventure to be had on Earth. That it couldn't possibly compare to the kinds of excitement that we encountered in space exploration. And what with the timing of all of this … and the outrageousness, the mysteriousness of it all … I was convinced he'd set it up. Demora is filled with people who are employees, or freelancers who are willing to be hired to perform some sort of bizarre adventure play. They were the evil villains, you were the mystery woman with the vague and exotic background. That's what I thought was going on here. Up until …" He paused and looked down again at the stain on his jacket that represented some of the remains of Kelles. "Well … I know better now."
"So when you went after Taine and the others that first time … you thought they were actors."
He paused, remembering. "Not when I first approached them, no. I thought they were following you to try and hurt you. It was only later, as matters escalated, that I thought it was faked."
"So you tried to help me initially believing that I was in trouble … and eventually, upon discovering your error, you then leaped to the rescue in a shuttle, engaged in a daring high-speed chase across the desert, battled hand to hand with a man who was trying to kill you, then hurled us to safety with a makeshift sled … and now you're concerned I'll laugh at you."
Sulu stared at her. "Well … I wouldn't have put it quite that way but, essentially … yes, that's right."
And to his utter astonishment she leaned over and kissed him full on the lips. It was brief, sweet, and refreshing, like a summer shower that comes from nowhere, vanishes to the same place, and leaves you feeling invigorated.
She looked at him and he would have sworn that the twinkling stars from overhead were reflected in her eyes.
"You are so cute," she told him. Then she patted him on the knee. "Come on. Let's go."
"By all means," he said, and pulled his boots back on.
She took his hand as they started up the next erg. They made it to the top, slid down the other side, and continued walking, His fingers interlaced with hers as they kept moving, slowly but steadily.
Neither of them complained, both remaining stoic about the situation. But as hour piled upon hour, their progress was nowhere near as rapid as either of them would have liked, and the lack of water was starting to get to them. Plus unspoken was the simple fact that time was against them. Sooner or later, the sun would rise. No one was more aware of that than Sulu. As the sun rose the heat would begin to rise as well, the temperature driven upward, going as high as 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It was incumbent upon them to get as far as they possibly could during the night, but it wasn't as if they'd already had the most restful of days.
As they scaled and then slid down dunes, no discussion passed between them. During the plateaus, however, they would talk. Sulu discussed his youth in San Francisco, and his Starfleet career, which began in physics but then switched to navigation and helm. His family, his friends.
And Ling, for her part, listened. She didn't volunteer much in the way of her own personal history, and when he pressed her she smiled and demurred. "Oh, come now, Sulu. Don't you remember? The mystery woman. What good would be served by knowing too much about the mystery woman."
"But you're not really."
"Oh, but I am. At least, I am now. I rather like it, I must admit." She smiled. "Understand, I don't think of myself that way. I'm just a hard worker, with a background that would sound rather mundane if I went into it. But being a 'mystery woman,' well … that's an honor. Even a responsibility."
"How is it a …" He stopped and pointed. "Look."
She followed where he was pointing, certain that they couldn't possibly be within view of the city. The shuttle had taken them too far, too fast. They couldn't have covered the distance that quickly. . . .
Then she saw it.
"An oasis," she said.
"At first I thought it might be a mirage."
"Not at night. Come on."
There were some ninety large oases throughout the Sahara, and many smaller ones. This was definitely one of the smaller ones, too small to support any sort of large settlement. But the vegetation, while not copious, was still lush, and the water was flowing from an underground spring. They drank of it greedily, for although they were nowhere near as dehydrated as they would have been had it been daytime, their thirst was nevertheless a very real thing.
Sulu let the water run over his parched lips, splashing it in his face, closing his eyes and letting it run over his head. He wavered slightly and realized that closing his eyes wasn't the best of ideas; he was that fatigued. He forced them open and looked at Ling Sui.
She had removed her shirt, revealing a black halter top beneath. Her arms were muscular, even more so than Sulu would have surmised. He could see the curve of her breasts beneath the halter, they looked small and firm. If she was aware of his gaze moving across her, she gave no indication of it. She soaked the shirt in the small spring and then draped it over herself.
"You didn't need me," he said after a time.
She looked up at him questioningly. "Pardon?"
"You seem familiar with the Sahara. From the bottoms of your feet it's clear that you've done a ton of walking. I'd wager you'd have no trouble looking at the stars and figuring out which way to go."
She smiled and looked down. "If you wagered it, your money would be safe."
"Then why … ?"
"Why?" She feigned surprise. "Why, don't you remember? I'm your mystery woman now."
He laughed softly.
"Oh, now you scoff," she said. "Obviously you don't really know anything about it."
"I don't?"
"No, you don't." She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. And she sounded very sincere as she said, "Every man—particularly every man of adventure—should have one mystery woman in his life, Sulu. That woman who enters his sphere like a comet. Who creates her own reality around him and swallows him up in it. Who 'gets' to him, inflaming his senses, heightening the sheer experience of living so that from then on, when he wakes up each morning ever after, the world seems a little different to him because he knows that she's somewhere out there in it.
"That woman whom he thinks about, wonders about … wonders if, sooner or later, she'll pop back into his life just as abruptly as she entered it before. With some new adventure in tow, some new villains seeking to do her in. It doesn't happen, of course, because such things never happen more than once, really. You can't have a string of mystery women; it's unfair to all those pathetic wretches who, in fact, never do get a mystery woman. And years into the future, when he murmurs her name in his sleep, his wife asks him about it in the morning and he shrugs and says, 'It was just a dream, honey. It's not supposed to make sense.'"
"You've got my entire life planned out for me, then? You come into it, you disappear from it, and I marry someone else and think of you now and then in fleeting moments?"
She looked at him sadly. "I hope not."
They were silent for a time, and then Ling Sui glanced around and said, "Do you think we should start walking again?" But she didn't sound tremendously enthused by the notion.
Nor was Sulu for that matter. He shook his head. "I don't know about you, but I've had a rather long day," he said wryly. "I don't think it'll be all that long until sunrise. And I doubt that we'd luck into another oasis right when the sun's coming up. But if we stay here …"
"Then we rest, recuperate, and start walking again tomorrow night." She nodded. "You're right, that's probably the way to go."
He nodded, then removed his jacket, rolling it up into a makeshift pillow that he positioned beneath his head. Ling Sui didn't seem to need any such contrivance, merely lying back with her head resting on the vegetation, her hands interlaced behind her head.
"Are you married, mystery woman?" he asked. "Or affianced, or in some way connected to someone else at the moment?"
"Oh, come on, Sulu," she chided. "Do I seem like that kind of woman?"
"I don't know what kind of woman you seem like. You're a mystery woman, remember."
"Right. That's right. Forgive me … this rarefied status is still new to me." Then, her voice soft and devoid of her cockiness, she said, "No. No husband. No fiancé. No one. You?"
"No one," he echoed.
"Ever feel lonely?"
"I have my friends. And I have the stars. We live in a galaxy so teeming with life … and I look up at the stars, knowing there are planets out there with alien life-forms that are likely looking right back at me. With all that, how can one ever be lonely."
"Oh, I feel exactly the same way. I've done my share of starhopping. Not on par with yours, of course, but I've gotten around. Seen a lot of things. Been up to my neck in one thing or another. Frankly, I don't even have time to be lonely."
"Same here."
"Ditto."
"Couldn't agree more."
She paused. "Ever feel lonely?" she asked again.
"Yes. A lot. You?"
"The same."
"Any regrets?"
He paused a moment, considering. "Do you want to wade through the same unconvincing rationalizations, or should we go straight for the truth."
"Oh, let's chance it."
"Regrets, yes."
"Same here. Although … it's not too late, you know. You're relatively young. So am I. We could each decide that's there more to life than running around and adventuring."
"Not too late?"
"No."
He gave it some thought and then sighed. "No, you're wrong. It's too late."
"I was afraid of that," she said.
They were quiet for a time more. It was so still, so silent around them, and Sulu became very aware of her breathing … and, curiously, he thought he could hear the steady rhythm of his own heart. . . .
"Why'd you switch?" she asked.
"Pardon?"
She rolled over, propping her head up on one hand. "Why did you switch?" she asked again. "From physics to helm. Aren't you just a … a chauffeur with delusions of grandeur?"
He chuckled softly at the metaphor. "Well, I'm in charge of weapons and tactical as well … plus, helming a starship is a bit more complicated than steering a vehicle."
"But that's not why."
"No, it's not." He hadn't stopped looking at the stars. "It's because, as I spent time in the lab, I suddenly came to the realization that, in that part of the service, I'd continue to spend my time in labs. Labs on a science vessel, labs on a starship … didn't matter. I'd be down in the bowels of the ship somewhere doing reports, making studies, passing answers on to the captain, who'd be up on the bridge doing whatever was necessary for the survival of the ship and crew.
"And I was talking with my mother one day, and I told her what I was learning at the Academy. And maybe she sensed somehow that I wasn't entirely happy with it. Part of what had drawn me to physics was that my father was a physicist, and so I just felt the inclination to follow in his footsteps. And she said to me—I suspect in hopes of prompting me to stay Earthbound—'I don't understand why you have to be out in space to be a physicist.' And I tried to have an answer for that … I think I even muttered something, although it was something clever such as 'You wouldn't understand.' But the fact was that she was right. There was no reason. Not really. Oh, there were experiments certainly that could only be conducted in space, but … was that sufficient reason? And I realized to me, at least, it wasn't.
"But helmsman … steering the ship … looking straight ahead and seeing the stars clustered in front of you … that's what I was really going out there for, Ling. For the stars. To go out and there lose myself in them."
"A helmsman who wants to lose himself? Doesn't sound promising."
He yawned and said, "There's no problem with losing yourself … as long as you can always find your way back."
"I suppose you're right," she said. "I suppose that—"
But the rest of what she said began to haze out to him and, almost before he realized it, he was asleep.
He was in that place where waking and dreaming intersect. . . . Stars seemed to float about him, and he was unsure of whether he was at the helm of the Enterprise or staring up into the night skies above the Sahara. It was an odd sensation, because usually one isn't aware that one is dreaming, and yet here he was, feeling as if the stars were rushing past him as he sped toward some odd destiny.
Star clusters were swirling in front of him, surrounded by blackness, and then they seemed to regroup and form the outline of a face …
Her face …
"Your mystery woman," she said to him, and she brought her lips to his. She tasted so sweet … she tasted like wild abandon, and youth, and adventure, and for bidden fruit that he could not resist here in the garden, and he told her all this, and she laughed. "Tasted all that before, have you, so you could compare?" she said teasingly. … And her hands were everywhere, she was everywhere in the dream, in the reality, the stars surrounding them and he had no idea if he was sleeping or awake or both. . . .
"Let this ease both our loneliness, at least for a little while," she whispered, her breath warm in his ear, and whether he was sleeping or awake he didn't care because it felt too good, what she was doing to him, too good, the muscular body moving against his and the heat, God, the heat was …
… pounding on him.
He sat up, blinking against the sun, suddenly aware that he was baking in it.
It was high above him, so high that he thought it might be around noon or so. The growth around him had protected him for a time, but the sun had moved into position so that it was shining down on him now.
He rolled over, his joints stiff, and he splashed water on his face from the stream.
"Ling Sui," he started to say, and looked up.
She wasn't there.
At first it didn't register on him that she was gone. He thought he was just looking in the wrong direction, but when he rolled over he saw that he was, in fact, alone.
He got to his feet, his legs wavering slightly. "Ling Sui!" he called again, his voice sounding hoarse.
No reply came except the echo of his own voice.
No sound except the nothingness of the desert … and the cries of Sulu shouting a name over and over.