Star Trek: The Fall: Revelation and Dust Page 20

  “What? What do you mean, honey?”

  “I’m okay,” Rebecca had repeated. “We better go or I’m gonna be late for school.” Her padd had fallen to the ground, but its strap still twisted around her arm in the crook of her elbow. She hoisted it back onto her shoulder, then turned without waiting for a response and resumed skipping down the avenue.

  Sisko had stood up and looked at Tey. As they started to follow Rebecca, Sisko asked, “Do you know what she meant by that? That she ‘knew’ she was going to fall, and that she ‘stopped’ herself?”

  Tey had shaken her head. “I don’t, not really. Clearly she didn’t really stop herself from falling. But Rebecca does make curious pronouncements like that sometimes.”

  “Like what exactly?” Sisko had asked. Even back then, the idea of Rebecca acting differently from other children, behaving or saying things out of the norm, concerned him.

  “She just sometimes says that she knew that something was going to happen,” Tey had said. “And sometimes she gives the impression that she knows things you didn’t think she could. But children’s minds are like sponges: they absorb so much.”

  “Have you talked with Ms. Yates about this?” Sisko had asked. As he spoke with Tey, he kept a watchful eye on Rebecca.

  “We’ve spoken about it a couple of times,” Tey had said. “I don’t really think it’s anything other than a quirk of Rebecca’s personality, and maybe an advanced observational or intuitional sense.”

  “You . . . you know our history,” Sisko had said. “You know my history.”

  “Yes, sir, I do, Captain Sisko. And you know that I’m not a believer in Bajoran mysticism—in any kind of mysticism. What I believe in is helping to take care of your wonderful little girl. If she ever did or said anything that concerned me, or that would concern you or Ms. Yates, I wouldn’t keep it to myself.”

  “Thank you,” Sisko had said. “I know that, and I appreciate it.” Down the avenue, he saw Rebecca approaching a side lane, into which a stream of children poured. She started to turn the corner with them, headed in the direction of her school. Sisko hurried ahead, not wanting to lose sight of her. Tey followed.

  Rebecca had disappeared around the corner. Sisko felt as though a knife had been thrust into his gut. He knew that he would reach the lane and turn into it—and his daughter would have vanished. A cold sweat broke out on his skin. He turned the corner, already gulping air into his lungs to yell out Rebecca’s name.

  But she’d been standing right there, just a couple of steps into the lane, looking at him. Waiting for him. As she had just a few moments earlier, she said, “I’m okay.”

  Sisko had bent down on one knee and pulled Rebecca to him, hugging her tightly. “Honey, you can’t do that,” he told her. “You can’t run away so that whoever’s with you can’t see you. Okay?” He pulled back and held her at arm’s length, looking into her deep, dark eyes—eyes, it suddenly struck him, that seemed far too . . . knowing . . . for her age.

  But then Rebecca had rolled those eyes and all at once had appeared seven years of age and no older. “Oh, Dad,” she said. Those sounded like words out of a child’s mouth too, and Sisko smiled. His desperate concern for his daughter felt foolish. As a parent, he wanted, he needed, to watch out for her safety, of course, but he couldn’t let the shadows of his own experiences cloud his judgment.

  As Sisko stood in the middle of his family’s quarters aboard Robinson, he asked himself again if he was doing that, impressing the nature of his own sometimes unusual past on his daughter. He thought about it, and answered himself aloud: “I probably am overreacting.” He considered speaking with Kasidy about it, but feared worrying her unnecessarily. He felt certain that if she had any concerns about Rebecca, she would have voiced them.

  Sisko glanced over his shoulder at his daughter’s closed bedroom door without really seeing it. Two days later, he would note the new message that Rebecca had already written on the glowpane hanging on her door, but he wouldn’t connect it to anything that had happened or that he’d thought on the night of the memorial.

  “It’s nothing,” he told himself about his foolish concern. “Nothing at all.” He then headed into the bedroom he shared with Kasidy.

  Rebecca’s glowpane read: Nothing is still something.

  Ten

  Keev Anora swung her handheld beacon from side to side in front of her, illuminating the walls and floor of the cave. Beside her, Altek Dans did the same. The ambient temperature, which had dropped continuously since they’d started back from the far entrance, seemed finally to have stabilized. That, coupled with the muscles in Keev’s legs revealing that, at least in some places, they had begun to climb, told her that they had passed the halfway mark of their return journey.

  Keev and Altek hiked through the cave system, their boots thudding heavily against the dirt and stone over which they trod. They did not speak, although Altek had occasionally tried to begin a conversation. Each time, Keev had shut him down, claiming the need to concentrate so that she could find and read the coded markers that delineated their route.

  That claim had been true, at least in part. The extensive cave system beneath the Merzang Mountains grew more complex the deeper it reached into the range. Their path varied from narrow slits through which they had to edge sideways, to even narrower ledges bordering precipitous drops, to low crawlways that sent them onto their bellies, to huge open chambers off of which led numerous other passages. As far as anyone in any of the gilds knew, only one course through the labyrinthine subterranean network had ever been found that allowed travel from one side of the mountains to the other. A one-way journey that began before dawn would end past midday, and along the way, a hundred or more choices had to be made. A single wrong turn could multiply the possibilities of getting lost by an order of magnitude. Through the years, more than one gild member who’d entered the caverns had never returned to the open air. They risked it, though, because it bypassed the trip around the mountains, reducing the travel time to the distant Bajoran city of Shavalla by weeks.

  Keev and Altek had left their gild’s encampment in the middle of the night to ensure that they would reach the cave entrance before even the first hints of sunrise robbed them of the cover of darkness. They brought with them four Bajora the gild had helped flee their enslavement in Joradell. The twelve-year-old Resten Ahleen had been among them.

  Everybody in Keev’s gild had wanted to move Ahleen from their encampment, through the caves, to true freedom, as soon as possible. Life in the wood, always on the run and under the threat of imminent attack, humbled the heartiest of adults; children did not belong. On top of that, the burden of protecting Ahleen in such circumstances weakened their ability to defend themselves, whether by flight or with weapons. More than all of those considerations, though, the members of the gild simply wanted the girl to begin her new life.

  But that hadn’t been possible. When Keev successfully smuggled Ahleen out of Joradell, the girl arrived at the gild’s encampment malnourished, poorly rested, and—worst of all—the victim of physical abuse. Her rescue might have saved her from sexual exploitation, but scars and still-healing wounds scored her back from where she had been lashed. She could not possibly have made the journey through the mountain caves in her condition.

  Additionally, although she had somehow gathered the wherewithal to participate in her escape from Joradell, her spirit had been shattered. She had run from tyranny, but she could not run from her own grief. When she had lost her mother, the girl had lost all that mattered to her in the world.

  For two months, the gild had cared for Ahleen. As she ate and slept and spent her days free from violence, she grew stronger, in both body and spirit. While no one could replace her mother, she did bond with Keev, as well as with Altek, no doubt because they had been directly responsible for her delivery from daily torment.

  Eventually, just after the rescue of three adult slaves, Ahleen had been deemed ready for the arduous trek through the ca
ves. After beginning in darkness, they reached the entrance with dawn still ahead of them. Keev and Altek uncovered the hidden cave entrance, then, once all of them had entered, carefully concealed it again.

  With Keev leading the way, they had made steady progress beneath the mountains. They arrived on the other side of the range, at the far end of the caves, after the sun had reached its zenith for the day. A group from Shavalla greeted them there, ready to lead the freed slaves to liberty.

  Ahleen, though, had been unwilling to part from Keev and Altek. Although she had managed the trip through the caves with few problems, and despite that she’d known what awaited her on the other side, still she clung to the two people who had set her free. It had taken time and a promise from Keev to visit her in Shavalla to convince the girl to say good-bye.

  I shouldn’t have given my word, Keev thought as she tramped through a long, narrowing cave. I shouldn’t have promised to visit Ahleen, because she’s had enough disappointments in her young life already.

  The walls closed in as Keev and Altek moved forward, until they no longer had sufficient room to walk side by side. She quickly jogged a step ahead of him—just as she’d done many times prior to that—leaving him to follow her. He did so without comment.

  A few steps later, in the light of her beacon, the passage cleaved in two, into a pair of tapering openings. Keev recognized the divide—she had long ago lost count of how often she had traversed the underground route. She recalled that they needed to take the right-hand branch, but the procedures that Veralla had put in place for their gild didn’t allow her to rely on memory alone.

  “Stop,” Keev said over her shoulder, and Altek did as instructed. She looked forward and estimated her distance from the divide, then turned around. “You need to take a few steps back.”

  “It’s the right fork,” Altek said, pointing over her shoulder.

  “I know it’s the right fork,” Keev said. “Now take three steps back.”

  “No wonder this trip takes so long,” Altek groused, but he did as he’d been instructed and moved backward.

  “Stop complaining,” Keev said, more harshly than she’d intended. Altek hadn’t carped at all until that point.

  Keev stepped forward, into the space Altek had vacated. She swept the beam of her beacon along the bases of the cave walls, searching. At last, she saw two stones wedged into a fold in the rock, and she looked a distance on either side of them until she saw the third stone, which she bent and examined. She saw on its surface a carved mark that specified the route they needed to take.

  Keev stood up and, without looking at Altek, said, “It’s the right fork.”

  As she turned away from him and started forward again, he murmured, “I wish I’d said that.”

  Keev whirled on him, causing Altek to stop short. “Hey,” she growled at him, shoving her palm into the middle of his chest, “I’m leading this mission. We have procedures—” She pointed in the direction of the stone markers. “—to prevent us from getting lost and dying in here, but if you want to go on alone, I won’t stop you.”

  Altek regarded her with an expression of surprise, but then his features changed. In the reflected light of their beacons, which sent shadows upward on his face, Keev watched his muscles harden and his brow furrow, his ego plainly asserting itself. She waited for him to fire back at her, but then he seemed to rein in his anger. “Sorry,” he finally said. “I’ll follow you.”

  Keev felt foolish. Crossing beneath the mountains, always grueling, had been made less so by Altek’s participation, especially when they’d escorted the four former slaves. She had no real reason to snap at him.

  With a curt nod, Keev resumed their trip. She followed the right-hand branch of the cave, up to the point where the walls tapered to just a couple of hand widths apart. She unclasped the harness in which she carried her water bottle, which hung at her waist. Though she’d refilled the container at the far entrance, she’d already drunk more than half of its replenished contents.

  Sidling up to the narrow opening, Keev tossed her water bottle and its harness through it. They rattled along the ground where they landed. The harness remained connected to her belt by a cord, ensuring that she would not lose it off an unseen ledge or down a hidden fissure. She then lobbed her beacon, also tied to her belt, after the water bottle. Finally, she removed her jacket and threw it forward as well.

  Without having to be told, Altek held his beacon on Keev so that she could see. She dipped her hand in a pouch on her belt and collected some fine powder on her fingertips, which she rubbed on her hands and then up and down the front of her clothing. She then wedged herself into the opening and began easing her way through it.

  Keev could feel the coldness of the rock against her. She moved by degrees, shifting her feet in small increments. She turned her head sideways, squeezing her body through the tight opening.

  She made it halfway through before she became stuck, a protrusion of rock hard against the center of her chest. It felt as though it pressed against her, as though trying to crush her. She’d experienced such tight spaces frequently on her trips through the caves, and so she knew how to maneuver herself through them. No matter what she tried, though, she could not move forward.

  Keev saw Altek facing her, but could not see his face in the shadows behind his beacon. She yelled in frustration, a formless, guttural cry that echoed around them. She pushed and pulled with all her might, struggling to make it through the opening.

  At last, she grew still. What had begun as mere frustration and anger graduated to fear. Keev did not suffer from claustrophobia, but the real possibility that she could be trapped there in the cave scared her. The hard surface of the rock felt both unforgiving and final.

  “Anora?” Altek said quietly, for the first time ever using her given name. He moved closer to her, but smartly kept some distance between them. She did not need to be crowded by him. “Anora, it’s all right.”

  She said nothing. She took as much of a breath as she could—the cave walls compressing her chest—and then tried once more to make her way through the narrow space. Keev didn’t budge.

  “Anora, it’s Ahleen, isn’t it?” Altek asked.

  “What?” Keev said. The question seemed completely out of place.

  “You’re troubled by leaving the girl,” he said. “And you’re mad at yourself for making a vow to her that you’re not sure you can keep.”

  Keev sagged, despite being lodged in stone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said—but of course she did know, and so did he.

  “It doesn’t matter what you told her today,” Altek said. “It doesn’t even matter if you never see her again. You saved her. You gave Ahleen back a life that had been stolen from her.” He paused, as though in thought, and then added, “No, you didn’t give her life back. You gave her a life she’s never had. You—”

  “Stop,” Keev said. The cold stone beside her mouth grew clammy beneath her warm breath. “Just stop.”

  “I’m sorry,” Altek said. He closed the distance between them, drawing in close to her. “How can I help you get through?”

  “You can’t,” Keev said, although she realized that he probably already had. Thinking for even a moment about something other than her physical predicament, she had already lost some of the tension in her body. “Just . . . give me a moment. I need to relax.” Keev tried to clear her head. She closed her eyes and envisioned a serene scene, away from Joradell, away from the gild and the wood, away from the caves. She visualized walking down the streets of Shavalla, free from care.

  In her imagination, she entered an old building, tramped down a decrepit, poorly lit hallway, and found herself standing before a closed door. She hadn’t tried to paint that picture in her mind, but she saw it anyway, as though she no longer controlled her own thoughts. Yet somehow it didn’t trouble her.

  The door swung inward, revealing a man with a warm, dark face and close-cropped black hair. A look of recogn
ition lighted his features. Nerys, he said, clearly mistaking her for somebody else—except that the name for some reason resonated with Keev. You’re all right.

  “Of course, I’m all right,” Keev said aloud, and her eyelids winked open. She still stood in a cave beneath the Merzang Mountains, lodged in a narrow passage. She saw Altek peering at her, wearing a concerned expression. Keev nodded at him, then began to shift her body. She twisted and shimmied, concentrating on keeping her body loose. Her torso moved forward, got stuck again, then finally pushed free into the wider passage beyond. She let out a long, relieved sigh.

  “Good job,” Altek called. “Are you all right?”

  Of course, I’m all right, Keev thought. “I’m fine,” she told Altek. She retrieved her jacket and donned it once more, her perspiration already growing cold on her skin. She took a drink from her water bottle, then replaced it, along with her beacon, on her belt. She then returned to the small space she’d just squeezed through and looked past it at Altek. “Are you ready to come through?” she asked him.

  “I am.”

  Keev reached through the stone slit, and Altek handed her his water bottle, jacket, and finally his beacon. She kept the latter shining in his direction so that he could see his surroundings. Keev stepped back when she saw his hand and arm come through the opening. Though taller and heavier than Keev, Altek took a much shorter time to negotiate the passage than she had, the different heights of the various parts of his body helping him to avoid becoming trapped in the same way that she had.

  Once Keev had given Altek his supplies back, they continued their journey. The cave widened, enabling them to walk beside each other. They resumed their silence.

  The temperature around them started to increase, to the point where both Keev and Altek removed their jackets. The cave floor rose, ascending toward the entrance. With less than an hour left to go, Keev said, “I shouldn’t have lied to Ahleen.”

  She could feel Altek regard her. When he didn’t say anything, she turned her head to face him. “Was it a lie?” he asked her when they made eye contact.