Authors: A. C. Crispin
Doctor Vargas was hardly recognizable. As the Captain approached, McCoy caught his eye and shook his head quickly.
“Can she talk, Bones?”
“I doubt it.”
At the sound of their voices, the battered form stirred and opened its eyes. “Kirk ...” The voice was so faint that the Captain shoved McCoy out of the way and nearly laid his ear on her mouth. He realized that she couldn’t see him, and took her hand.
“I’m here, Doctor Vargas ... who was it?”
“... Rom ...”
“Can you give her anything to help her talk, Bones?”
McCoy shook his head grimly. “No, Jim. Any stimulants will hasten the end.”
“I didn’t ask you that! Can you give her anything so she can talk?”
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“Cordrazine, or trimethylphenidate, but—”
“Dammit, Bones, give ’em to her! I’ve
got
to know if the Romulans found the Guardian!”
McCoy mumbled under his breath, but got out his hypo, and Kirk heard it hiss as he held it against her arm. She opened her eyes, moaned.
“Did they find out the truth, Doctor Vargas?” He shook her slightly. “Do they know the location of the Guardian?”
“No ... they had no drugs ... crude methods ... Torquemada ... we fought ... too many, too ... strong. But we didn’t ... tell. Stop them. ...” Her eyes closed, then opened wide, and she lurched under Kirk’s hands. He heard her ragged gasps, then her voice again, astonishingly clear. “You must stop them. My Guardian ... must not be used for ...” The blue eyes closed again, then opened as her head lolled back. The Captain lowered her gently to the ground, as McCoy closed the eyes.
The rescue team was standing behind him when Kirk stood up. Masters, the Chief of Security, spoke up. “We checked, sir. No survivors. Butchers ... seven of my people ...” He swallowed, then spoke in a more normal tone. “Burial detail, Captain?”
“For sixteen? Ground’s too hard. Have stretchers and body bags beamed down. Communications on scramble—tight beam. We don’t want to be monitored. We’ll have a group service when ... when this is all over. Did they all die the same way?”
“Tortured? Yes. Why, Captain?”
Kirk clenched his fists, took a deep breath. “For information they couldn’t have given, because they didn’t have it. The archeologists are the real heroes. They died rather than tell. Have you searched the building?”
“Yes, sir. Ransacked. It’s a good thing they got their records out.”
“Yes, it is. I only wish we’d gotten the people out, too. Have you taken care of identification, or does McCoy need to get retinal patterns?”
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“I took care of it, sir.”
“Very well. Get that equipment down here on the double. If we stick around much longer, we may join them.”
“Aye, sir.”
Kirk beckoned to McCoy. “Let’s check the Guardian. Set your phaser to kill.”
The two walked amid the tumbled ruins until the camp building was behind them. The Captain halted, scanned the area, then took a small pair of distance lenses, scanned it again. He shook his head. “Bones, check our location on your tricorder.”
The Doctor rattled off a string of coordinates. Kirk frowned. “I don’t understand ... we should be able to see it from here. Yet the landscape ahead is ...” His voice changed. “Bones, it’s
not there.
Where ... do you suppose they’ve managed to
move it
somehow?”
“Hell, no, Jim. They couldn’t move that thing. It must weigh tons. Besides, I’ll bet it wouldn’t operate in a different location. Where could it be, though?”
The Captain took out his communicator, adjusted the instrument to scramble. “Kirk to
Enterprise.”
“
Enterprise,
Spock here.”
“Have you been advised as to status here?”
“Affirmative, Captain.”
“Are you still monitoring the readings from the ruins?”
“Yes, Captain. They’ve remained steady, at the level you saw them.”
“Very well. Kirk out.”
The Captain took another long look at the area, eyes puzzled. Ruins, fallen columns, blue-gray boulders, ashy sand ... and that was all. “It can’t just have vanished, Bones! It
must
be out there, some—” He broke off and turned to the Doctor. “That’s it! It
is
out there, just where it should be—we just can’t see it!” McCoy stared at him. Kirk nodded excitedly. “A new kind of cloaking device. They’re projecting some sort of camouflage image at
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us. The Guardian is about a hundred meters in front of us, but hidden by this ... planetary cloaking device.”
“You could be right, Jim. Sounds reasonable to me. If you are, though, how in hell are you going to keep the Romulans from using the Guardian—if we can’t find it ourselves?”
“Can you scan it on your tricorder? Pick up any life-form readings that would tell us where they’re located in there?”
The Medical Officer’s tricorder hummed, then he shook his head disgustedly. “The time energies show up, but that’s all. No way to pinpoint anything else. We’re blind instrumentally, as well as visually.”
Kirk looked thoughtful. “That gives me the beginnings of an idea ... let’s go back.”
The first thing McCoy and Kirk saw when they materialized in the transporter room was Zar. The pallor of his face made his eyes look nearly black. His voice shook. “The landing party ... they’re all dead, aren’t they? If only I had known earlier, they might still be alive ... Juan and Dave ... Doctor Vargas ...”
McCoy stared, realized the younger man was in shock. Kirk moved, grabbed one rigid arm, shook it. The Captain’s voice had the crack of an order. “Bones. Help me get him to sickbay.”
Zar moved like an automaton as they propelled him into sickbay and pushed him into a seat. The Doctor worriedly took his pulse, glanced at Kirk. “Snap out of it, son. How’d you know about the landing party?”
The gray eyes blinked, lost some of their glazed look. “I ... knew. The same way I knew ... before. My head hurt, and I felt sick when I realized why the Romulans were attacking. The pain got worse—I passed out—and then it stopped. When I remembered the only time it had ever happened before, I knew that they were all dead.” He slumped
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in his seat. “All dead ... I might have been able to save them, if I hadn’t ...”
Kirk handed him a cup of black coffee, watched narrowly as the shaking fingers took it, then steadied the cup as it sloshed. “Take it easy, Zar. What do you mean, you know why the Romulans attacked?”
“It was obvious. They invaded this system to find the Guardian. It’s potentially a deadly weapon. When I asked the computer about this sector, it didn’t even know the time portal existed, so it
must
be classified. I wonder how the Romulans found out?”
“I don’t know.” Kirk shrugged, then pulled McCoy to one side as they watched Zar lean his head in his hands, exhausted. “What do you think, Bones?”
“I don’t know, Jim. Precognition? Clairvoyance? Empathy with his friends’ terror? I can’t make guesses without more data.”
The Captain’s mouth tightened. “You’re starting to sound like his father. I’ve got to get back to the bridge. Meanwhile, find out everything you can about this. It could be useful.”
After Kirk left, McCoy gave his patient another cup of coffee. “Feeling better?”
“Yes.” Zar shook his head. “I can hardly believe it, though. I talked to them only a few hours ago ... then, to see them like that ...” He pushed the cup away.
“But you weren’t there. You couldn’t see—” McCoy stopped.
“Yes, I did. In your mind, when you touched me.”
“I’m sorry.” McCoy scanned the features in front of him, realized that they were leaner, more drawn than they’d been seven weeks ago. The new maturity made him look less human, more like—”Zar, when did you start having these feelings of being sick?”
“Almost as soon as I said good-bye to Juan and Dave. Then I started drawing, and I drew Doctor Vargas. I tried to forget it, but it kept coming back, getting stronger, and finally, I passed out from the pain. When I came to, I was fine. It was only later,
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while I was talking to ... someone, when I realized what the sickness meant. ...”
“What time was it the worst?”
“About two and a half hours after the landing party beamed down.”
When they died
... McCoy thought, remembering his brief examination of the bodies.
“You say this happened to you once before? When?”
The younger man’s face was haunted. “When ... she died ... seven years ago. I’d forgotten, almost—I guess I wanted to forget. That’s why I didn’t connect it ... it never worked for me—the time the vitha almost killed me, I had no warning. But when she fell ... I was hunting, nearly ... it must have been eight kilometers away. I felt the warning—sick, my head hurt, my stomach—and I knew something was wrong. I started to run back ... I was about halfway when the pain came, and I knew it had happened. It knocked me out. ... When I got there, I was too late ... she was already ... she’d been dead for at least an hour. ...”
McCoy shook his head, and could think of nothing to say. Zar sat for a while, expression remote, then turned back to the Doctor. “When I realized that I had felt the same way as when my mother died, I knew that something must’ve happened to my friends, and that there was nothing I could do.” His hands clenched. “That’s the worst thing. To know it’s going to happen, and that there’s no way to stop it. Also, how am
I
going to manage, if every time I care about somebody and they die, I ... feel it, too?”
“The more versed you become in the Vulcan mind-control techniques, the better off you’ll be, I suspect.” McCoy said. “That’s not much comfort at the moment, I know. Incidentally, if you get any more of these ... feelings, let me and the Captain know.”
“All right.”
“Now you’d better get out of here, and get some
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sleep. You look like you could use it, and I’ve got some unpleasant work ahead.”
Zar nodded and left. McCoy got a gown and gloves out of supplies, and went into the pathology bay, mentally gritting his teeth.
“So we have a problem.” The Captain paced a few steps at the head of the briefing room table. “We know that the Romulans have activated the planetary cloaking device so that it surrounds the Guardian. As long as that device is activated, we have no way of determining where the Romulans
are
inside the perimeter of the screen. Also, we have no idea of the numbers we’re facing. If we beam down a detachment, attempt to penetrate the encampment, we may find ourselves in their laps as soon as we step through ... facing much greater numbers. Spock has calculated the area of the cloaking device, and it’s large enough to mask a force of considerable strength. Every moment that goes by, is another that the Romulans have to use the Guardian. Our instruments are no help, except to tell us the size of the field. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t already used the time portal, but
we’re
still here, so I must assume they haven’t. Yes, Lieutenant?” His gaze fixed on Uhura.
“Captain, you’re basing a lot of your thinking on the premise that the Romulans
know
what the Guardian is—its capabilities as a time portal.” Uhura shook her head thoughtfully. “Perhaps we ought to examine that. There are—how many would you say? Maybe twenty persons in the entire Federation—including the five of us here—who know about the Guardian.
What makes you think the Romulans know about it?”
A babble of voices filled the briefing room. Uhura raised a hand for quiet, got it and continued, “Romulan knowledge of the powers of the Guardian would imply a security leak of some kind. To Star Fleet’s knowledge, there’s been no such leak.” The dark-skinned woman leaned forward, eyes intent. “I don’t
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believe there’s been a leak, either. I don’t think the Romulans know what the Guardian is, at all. I think they learned that we were guarding this planet for some unknown purpose. The Romulans probably assume that the Federation is protecting some military secret that’s hidden on Gateway, Something man-made, an installation of some kind. Why else would a full-time guard of a starship be assigned to a burned-out cinder like that?” Uhura paused again, then continued. “Think of what it was like when the original landing party beamed down to Gateway. ... Mr. Spock located the Guardian with his tricorder—and his scanners, on the ship. Romulan technology, thank goodness, isn’t as advanced scientifically as ours. Militarily, they’re powerful, but they lack intellectual curiosity. And the time portal won’t respond, unless they ask a question ... I’ll bet they’re so busy searching for some kind of weapon, or spaceship, that they’ve ignored the ruins—including the time portal.”
Silence for a beat. Spock nodded, fingers steepled. “An extremely logical line of reasoning, Lieutenant. I’m inclined to agree, since your theory alone fits all the available facts.” The Vulcan looked grave. “However, we cannot bank on their remaining unaware of the Guardian for long. Sooner or later, they will discover it. And when they do ...”
The Captain shook his head. “We must prevent that. Even if it means using the phasers aboard the
Enterprise
and the
Lexington
to wipe out the planet. We’ve got less than thirteen hours now, before the Romulan fleet arrives. Hopefully, our ships will be right on their tails, but we can’t afford to chance it.”