The Darkness Drops Again Read online

  After another few moments, Kirk was yanked to his feet again. “Take him to a holding cell,” the man said to someone else. “What comes next… we’ll see.”

  Odra maVolan stared at Asal Janto. “Admiral Kirk himself? Are you certain?”

  Asal fidgeted under his gaze. In recent years, Payav medicine had regenerated to the point that a privileged few could have their sight restored. MaVolan himself had backed the effort and had been one of its first beneficiaries. But he had long used his blindness as a symbol of his purity and commitment, so in public, he always wore specially made contact lenses to simulate the cataracts he no longer had, and he took care to avoid looking directly at anything. He did not keep up the pretense with Asal and the few others who knew his secret, but even in private, he sometimes neglected to remove the contacts. It was disquieting to see those seemingly opaque pupils focusing on her so precisely. Perhaps, Asal reflected, it was not by accident that maVolan left them in. “Our operative in the resistance recognized him despite his disguise.”

  “And they are taking him to Lon.”

  “Yes,” Asal said, trying to match the calculating tone in maVolan’s voice, to sound more like a partner than a lackey. “Our agent is not well enough placed in the resistance to be told Lon’s whereabouts, but some kind of tracking device could be arranged.”

  “No.”

  Asal stared. “I… beg your pardon?”

  MaVolan smiled. “Even the mar-Tunyor can do God’s work on occasion. For years, Lon has been contaminating our world with his unholy mosses and worms. For every field of them we burn, another crops up within weeks. Our efforts to locate and assassinate him have always run afoul of the blasphemers who would shelter him. Yet now, one of his own fellow devils has come to take him away, so he may inflict his curse on some other world.” The smile became a chuckle. “As I have preached to the people many a time, conserving energy does God’s work. So let us conserve our energy. Let Kirk remove Lon and save us the effort.”

  “Of course.” Asal laughed now, though maVolan did not join her, and she trailed off to silence. “But what if Lon refuses to go?” she asked after a moment.

  “He will not. I have met the man, remember? He is a true mar-Tunyor, arrogant to the last. Our world is a puzzle for him to solve, and he stays only because he feels compelled to impose his will upon it, to remake it in his image. I often entertain myself imagining the frustration he must feel at our constant thwarting of his efforts.” Asal declined to point out that maVolan had alluded to feeling such frustration himself mere moments before. “But now Kirk offers him a new puzzle, one he will not be stymied in solving. He will jump at the chance. The mar-Tunyor’s own folly will bring about our triumph. Yes. I have seen it.” He folded his hands serenely.

  “No more Lon,” Asal mused. “Imagine it. There is so much more we will be able to accomplish without the need to fight against him constantly.”

  “Yes. We can bring purity to hur-Atyya that much more quickly.”

  “Purity, yes.” She paused. “Breathing the air outside would be nice, too.”

  “We will be able to restore our native ecology much more easily without this constant contamination.”

  Asal nodded. “Still… the moss did do a good job restoring oxygen. And it was only moss.”

  MaVolan’s “unseeing” gaze grew sharper. “What are you saying, Asal?”

  “Perhaps… once Lon has been gone for a time… we can phase some of the moss into our own plan. Once it is no longer a symbol of mar-Tunyor interference, we can control how and where it is used. The people need not even know it is not our own creation.”

  “I never would have thought to hear such words from you, Asal,” maVolan said darkly. “They smack of… compromise. And doubt. Surely you have not let yourself be swayed by mar-Tunyor propaganda? You know there is no proof that the rise in temperature and oxygen levels was caused by the alien plants. It was simply a natural fluctuation for which they seized credit.”

  “That’s what we’ve been saying all these years. It’s what I wanted to believe. But it’s hard to deny how cold it’s getting out there. Maybe we should reconsider some of our assumptions.”

  MaVolan shook his head. “It is not like you to say such things. That is not the pure, constant faith of the Asal I chose to lead our people.”

  She did not miss the veiled threat, or the irony. Years ago, she was the one Raya elMora had criticized for believing that unwavering faith alone would always be enough. “I still believe we serve God’s plan, Odra. But… however blasphemous they may have been, the mar-Tunyor seem to have made a difference. More of a difference than we have made since taking over. I simply suggest that we could learn something from their efforts. Let the mar-Tunyor do God’s work for us, as you said.”

  “You have not heard my words truly, Asal, if you could use them in this way. Not a single cell of mar-Tunyor matter can be tolerated on our soil!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk and making Asal jump. “Only when we are pure, in biology and in spirit, will God restore our world to what it was.”

  Asal gathered herself. “This is me, Odra. I don’t need to hear the party line. We need practical policies that can get things done. I believe we can do that within the confines of faith, but we can’t do it with the same simplified speeches we give to the people.”

  “Our hold on the people is tenuous enough as it is. Too many lack faith. Too many are blinded by their own hunger. We must maintain our commitment to our principles, or we will weaken our hold and run the risk of rebellion.”

  “I’d like to think,” Asal said after a moment, “that our policies are still motivated by something more than protecting our own jobs.”

  MaVolan glared. “I will choose to take that as an instance of your often-inappropriate humor. I know as well as you that hur-Atyya itself is at stake. That is why I strive so hard to eliminate threats to my authority—because only then can I ensure the salvation of our world. Do not doubt me again, Asal. Do not let your commitment to our salvation waver.”

  Even through the contacts, she could see very clearly what was in maVolan’s eyes—perhaps more clearly than ever before. “It will not happen again,” she said. But she averted her own eyes as she did so.

  “No, Kirk. I’m going nowhere.”

  Kirk studied Dr. Lon, sizing him up. They stood facing each other in a damp, echoing cave that was lined, so the resistance had assured him, with refractory minerals that would block transporter or comm signals. Kirk was here alone, with Uhura and Leslie still being held as hostages for his cooperation. Lon was accompanied by a burly young man—evidently Kirk’s interrogator from before—and a striking, slender woman with large dark eyes. Lon seemed unexpectedly at home in this ragtag company; had Kirk not known the man from before, he never would have realized he was human.

  But Lon was more than a human; he was a scientist. Kirk appealed to that—and to his ego. “Dr. Lon, the people of Verzhik need your expertise. They’re struggling to hold off a mass extinction. They need the best people the Federation has to offer, and they’ve asked for you by name.”

  Lon smirked. “My name these days is Cart etDeja. I doubt the Verzhik asked for him. As far as the Federation is concerned, Marat Lon is dead.”

  “A dead man can’t help save a world.”

  “You talk of saving worlds? What about this world? What about its people? Do the Verzhik have a ruling clique of pathological narcissists who deny the blinding reality of their world’s death throes, who would doom their whole race to extinction rather than admit they were capable of being wrong? Are the Verzhik people having more and more of their rights taken from them every season, or being forced to suffer ever-worsening deficiency diseases and epidemics because the medicines and supplements that can help them don’t fit the mar-Atyya version of kashrut? Are their people arrested and imprisoned without trial for even suggesting that the state doesn’t have all the answers? Well?” Kirk knew the answer was clear in his eyes. “
There you are. They don’t need me nearly as much as the Payav do.”

  “But you can actually accomplish something there.”

  “I’m accomplishing things here. We all are. Our numbers grow every day as the state gets more and more ruthless. We have a whole network, not just here but on Kazar and the other refugee communities.”

  Kirk’s ears perked up. “Are you in contact with Raya elMora?”

  “Regularly. We’re building a coalition, winning the hearts and minds of the people. And soon, the state won’t be able to—”

  “Cart,” the woman said. “Should we tell him this?”

  “He won’t do anything, Daki. He’s forbidden to interfere.”

  The woman—Daki—focused those stunning eyes on Kirk. “Then you should not even be here. Cart is one of us now.”

  “He’s a Federation citizen. A human.”

  “And why does that matter?” Lon asked. “Have we regressed so far as to believe that genetics defines identity again? It doesn’t matter where I was born or what’s in my DNA. I’m a Payav now.”

  Kirk studied him. “You certainly have changed, Doctor.”

  Lon laughed—rather startlingly, at his own expense. “I forget how condescending I used to be. I don’t like to remember. I thought the Payav were such primitives just because they’d only begun to enter the warp age. I never gave a thought to their heritage, their cultural achievements, their strength of character.

  “When I decided to stay here, I assumed I could save them from themselves single-handedly. I almost got killed my first day.” He took the woman’s hand. “Daki here saved me, and I began to realize that if I were to survive, I needed the Payav. More… I needed to become a Payav. And the more I saw the faces of the people I’d come to help—the more I heard their stories, the more I had to experience life the same way they lived it—the more inevitable that became.”

  “Don’t misunderstand,” Daki said, smiling. “He’s still a condescending vikak most of the time. But he’s our vikak.”

  Kirk took in their interplay. “How long have you been married?”

  Lon moved closer to Kirk. “Our son is already an avid reader. He’s starting to take an interest in ecology. He already knows enough to doubt the state’s party line. But he needs a good teacher to help nurture that insight.”

  He held the admiral’s eyes for a time. “Ask me again to leave Mestiko.”

  U.S.S. Enterprise

  “I take it you did not ask,” Spock said.

  Kirk looked at his old friend across the briefing-room table. He was back in uniform, restored to his normal complexion, but still hairless for now. “Would you?”

  “No,” Spock said. “There is a distinct logic to Dr. Lon’s—or perhaps I should say Dr. etDeja’s—decision.”

  “If Bones were here, he’d say Lon followed his heart.”

  Spock raised a brow. “The heart has its own logic, which sometimes works in concert with that of the mind. As my longtime association with the doctor should make clear.”

  “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “I would appreciate it if you did not, Jim.”

  Kirk chuckled. “Well, you may see him before I do.” He slid a data cartridge across the table to Spock. “Lon’s notes. A copy of all his research over the past few years, developing ways to minimize the damage the mar-Atyya are doing to the environment. He believes it should be possible to adapt his processes to help the Verzhik. He also took some time to review the data I brought and offer some specific suggestions for recovery strategies there.

  “That’s the Enterprise’s next mission, Spock. Once you drop me off at Earth, I want you to head straight to Verzhik. I’m putting you in charge of implementing Dr. Lon’s strategies and recommendations. Maybe they don’t get Lon, but I’m seeing to it that they get the next-best thing.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in me, Jim, but I am not a specialist in this field.”

  “But you’re the best generalist in Starfleet. And you’ll have the help of all the specialists who are already there. You’ll do fine.”

  “I wonder… will Admiral Morrow be so sanguine about this outcome?”

  “You let me deal with Harry.” Kirk frowned, growing contemplative. “I just wish there’d been something I could do about things on Mestiko. That’s twice now I’ve had to leave things as bad as they were when I came, or worse.”

  “But you did not make them worse by removing Dr. Lon. And from what you say, there is hope that they can resolve the situation on their own.”

  Kirk’s eyes were haunted. “But what if they can’t?”

  Jarol Desert, Kazar

  Raya looked out the shuttle’s window and smiled at the sight of the expansive daggerleaf forest below. The Kazarite geneticists had done their work precisely to the Payav’s specifications: the trees’ narrow, succulent leaves held onto water effectively, while their deep roots tapped the water table and reduced the need for irrigation. And the trees grew fast, becoming more effective as a windbreak with every season, sheltering the desert beyond from the winds that had been stripping away its moisture and its topsoil.

  But Raya was finally able to realize how beautiful they were. The daggerleaf trees didn’t have the deep meaning that the noggik tree had held for so many Payav, but Raya planned to bring some back with her to Mestiko when the time came.

  Soon the shuttle passed beyond the forest, soaring over the fields of drought-resistant perennial crops that supplemented their annuals. The kovna grain that provided their staple food source had been successfully engineered for drought resistance, as well as for resistance to parasites and insects, for smaller crop losses meant less water wasted on plants that did not survive to be eaten. Back home, after the Pulse, even the Norrb had not been this successful at growing kovna. The Kazarites had been helpful with this as well, once Raya had persuaded them to spare sufficient facilities and personnel for the engineering work. But it was still helpful to have a backup food source from the perennials, for the rough years. Also, the perennials’ extensive root systems helped prevent the soil from eroding and clung to whatever moisture remained in it. Season by season, the Payav refugees managed to hold on to more and more of the Jarol’s water, to come closer to a day when the label Jarol Desert would no longer apply. But Raya was resolved that when that day came, she would be watching it remotely from Mestiko, with Elee and Theena by her side.

  Not that she didn’t have plenty of company here, she reminded herself as she saw the settlement’s children crowding around the landing pad below. The children wore wide-brimmed hats to shield their pale skin from the sun and bandanas to protect their noses and mouths from the dust the shuttle kicked up, but she could still see their excitement in their body language. It seemed the numbers of Payav here grew every day, whether from new births or from the steady influx of refugees. Many worlds had taken in those who fled from Mestiko, but few Payav felt at home there or could easily adapt to a way of life generations more advanced than their own. As word of the exiles’ accomplishments in the Jarol spread, more and more had made their way here, seeking a place that the Payav could call their own, a land they could build and grow on and make into what they needed. It filled Raya with pride that her people had achieved so much here in spite of the Kazarites who had shunted them off to their unwanted lands—in spite of the Federation that had abandoned them.

  In spite of James T. Kirk.

  Raya spent a suitable time greeting the children, telling them of the progress of the daggerleaf forest and how beautiful it was becoming. But she cut it short as soon as she felt appropriate, for she was eager to get to Cadi.

  Cadi orMalan greeted her just as eagerly when she reached his dwelling, knocking her hat off with his kiss and his embrace. She laughed and pulled away. “Time for that later. There’s news from home?”

  Cadi reined himself in. “Yes. We got a new report from the resistance.”

  “Tell me.” News from home was something to cherish—not
just for its provenance but for the difficulty of getting it here. The courier ships that snuck into the system and the resistance members who beamed out radio pulses for them to intercept risked discovery and arrest by the mar-Atyya. Sometimes the couriers did not come back, or they came back with partial signals that had been violently interrupted.

  Nothing untoward had happened to the signalers or couriers this time, but the news they delivered infuriated Raya. “Kirk! He did it to us again! Not enough he abandoned our world in its time of need, now he has to try to steal our best hope of its salvation?”

  “Lon refused to go,” Cadi reassured her. “He truly is one of us. He stood his ground and sent Kirk packing.”

  Raya gave a contemptuous laugh. “Kirk is getting soft. He used to be more stubborn. Or maybe Lon is just too stubborn even for him.”

  “He’s dedicated to the cause. Like all of us.”

  “Yes.” Raya released her tension with a sigh.

  “Forget Kirk. We don’t need him. We never did.” She stood alongside Cadi, gazing out the window. “Look what we’ve built here, Cadi. It’s just a preview of what we’ll do when we take our home back.”

  Cadi studied her. “Raya… there’s no reason we can’t make this a home as well. I mean… you’re the one who keeps urging us to have more children. Why can’t you… and I… set an example of our own?”

  Furrowing her brow, Raya took him into her arms. “Oh, Cadi. You know your companionship has been a great boon to me. But I can’t think of such responsibilities now. There’s too much else I need to do.”

  “You need not do it all yourself. There are so many back home now, and all of us ready to support them.”

  “I know. But I’ve been working so long to coordinate it, and we have so much momentum building. I dare not risk interrupting it.”

  Cadi was silent for a long moment. “Raya… I’m not sure I’d want to leave the Jarol. I’ve put so much of myself into it. And it feels like home. More than Mestiko ever could again in my lifetime, probably.”