The Folded World (20 page)

Minister Chan'ya stood at the head of the table in her quarters. The others were seated around it, which she liked because that was the only time she was the tallest. Height did not always equal power on Ixtolde, but there was an undeniable correlation. She had achieved considerable influence on her home planet, but had she been taller, there would have been fewer limits on her potential accomplishments.

Well, she could still achieve things others didn't dare to dream of. But first she had to negotiate the current crisis. “They have been on the ship far too long,” she said.

“We agree,” Keneseth said. Chan'ya spun toward him, but stopped herself before she blasted his presumptuousness. She did not in the least care that he agreed. The only reason he was here was that his mother had great social standing back home, and the ears of several important Ixtoldans.

“Yes,” Chan'ya said, as pleasantly as she could manage. “We are all in agreement. Who can say what they might have learned in this time? Their presence there was a danger to us, and now that danger has become
transferred to their return here. Should they make it safely back to the
Enterprise,
all our efforts at winning Federation membership will have been in vain.”

“But how can their return be prevented, Minister?” Cris'ya asked. She picked at a scab on her cheek with the same clawed finger with which she had probably created it.

“That is our greatest difficulty,” Chan'ya said. “We seem to have run out of good options. If we take action—which means destroying the ship and everyone on board—we will lose any chance at Federation membership. We will also, in every likelihood, be subject to disciplinary measures levied by the Federation. We should hate to spend any more time than necessary on Earth, and we have no desire to experience the inside of a Federation prison.”

“But if we don't,” Skanderen observed, “then Kirk and the others come back. And report what they saw. Which means—”

“Which means, no Federation membership,” Chan'ya replied. “And instead, we will face disciplinary measures from our own. And they will, we are sure, be every bit as harsh.”

“More so,” Cris'ya said. “The peoples of the Federation are soft. They rely on numbers and on the advantages granted them by commerce to do what we would do by force of will.”

“We are in agreement,” Chan'ya told her. “But do not discount the power of commerce. That, all along,
has been our reason for seeking Federation membership. Ixtolde is richer than . . . than what we had before, but she is far from rich. She will not support us all for much longer, not without trade.”

Trade was Tre'aln's area of expertise, and he spoke up. “Chan'ya speaks wisdom. Putting our trade prospects in jeopardy is unthinkable.”

Chan'ya took her seat again. This whole situation had been wearying, and it was far from over. “And yet, we have no choice. Jeopardy exists either way. Act and face the consequences. Or don't act, and face what might be greater consequences still.”

“Have you reached a decision, then?” Tre'aln asked. “Because we believe something must be done.”

“We see only one possible solution,” Chan'ya said. She placed her palms flat on the table. “The
Ton'bey
must destroy the ship before the captain and his party can escape it.”

Cris'ya's golden eyes went wide. “But then—”

“Then,” Chan'ya interrupted, “we declare that the captain of the
Ton'bey
acted against our express commands. We punish him twice as severely as the Federation would have. Only by placing all blame squarely on him can we hope to salvage anything from this mission. And the cost of failure is not one that we are prepared to pay.”

“Then it is agreed,” Tre'aln said.

Chan'ya looked around the table, at each in turn. Cris'ya, Skanderen, the so-far-silent Antelis,
and finally Keneseth. “It is agreed,” each one said.

“Well and good,” Chan'ya said when they had reached consensus. “Keneseth, tell that captain what must be done. And do it quickly; we fear the
Enterprise
crew is trying to monitor our communications. This one, they must not intercept.”

•   •   •

“Your name,” Spock said, “is Aleshia.”

He felt the warmth on his shoulders that he could interpret only as affirmation.

“The journal you had me read. It is yours. Your story, your life.”

And there it was again. It was, he had to admit, a pleasant sensation.

“You came onto this ship from Ixtolde. You were an original Ixtoldan.”

Once more, that comforting weight.

“I . . . could not read all of it,” Spock admitted. “Your language is foreign to me, as is your form of writing. I made progress, but there was some that I missed. Yet, I should like to know more.”

That elicited no response. He did not interpret that as opposition, but instead as acceptance. He held his right hand up at about the height of his own head. “Come before me,” he said. “Right here, to my hand.”

What he was about to try was risky in the extreme. It was rarely attempted, even by the most practiced Vulcans. But it was not, he knew, impossible. Not
impossible to do, not impossible to survive. He had to cling to that knowledge or chance frightening himself out of trying it. If he didn't believe, fully, that he could do it, then he would fail.

Failure would be disastrous.

Failure, in this place, in this situation, he might not survive.

“I need to touch you,” Spock said. “I am aware, of course, that you have no physical form. Nevertheless, I can sense your presence. You feel to me as a slight warmth, the very lightest weight imaginable. Perhaps those things are imaginary, existing only in my mind and not in the world of material things. Just the same, I need to be in contact with you.” He twitched his fingers. “Just here, please.”

After a moment, he felt the trace warmth, as if a hand had just touched his palm glancingly and then moved away. But the warmth lingered.

“Thank you, Aleshia,” Spock said. “What I am about to do is a curiously intimate thing. We call it a Vulcan mind-meld. It has not always been accepted, even among my kind, because it can be seen as invasive. I believe that is inaccurate, though. It would be invasive if one of us were to do it to the other. Instead, each of us would be doing it
with
the other. It is more a sharing than an intrusion. Just the same, you may find it strange, even frightening, at first.”

He did not tell her how frightening it was to him. Such destructive emotions had to be shut down, and
his Vulcan psycho-suppression training would allow him to do that. Any element of risk had to be forgotten. This was a somewhat unusual circumstance, but he was convinced that Aleshia had a mind, and any being with a mind could be melded with.

Or so Spock chose to believe.

The thought came to him, briefly, that although Aleshia had consciousness, hers was linked with the others on the ship, part of the group-mind.

Melding with Aleshia might mean melding with that group-mind.

And its madness might be transferable. Contagious. There was no better way to catch insanity than opening one's mind to it.

Again, thoughts like that had to be suppressed. He could not afford to accept the possibility of danger, or failure, or madness. He had to deny those ideas any foothold, or he should not even attempt this.

But he had no choice. He had read Aleshia's journal. It had been enlightening, to say the least.

Now he had to
understand
.

“Are you ready, Aleshia?”

He still felt that trace of warmth against his palm, but at the same time he felt it on his shoulders. Her way of saying “Yes.”

“Then,” Spock said. “Let us begin . . .”

•   •   •

They met another group of Romulans on the next deck down. O'Meara was out in front, Kirk keeping a
close eye on him to make sure his concern for Tikolo didn't outweigh caution.

The last few encounters had altered the mood of the team. There had been an urgency to find the others and get off the ship, but doing so had seemed to be low-risk. Nobody liked it there, but until the attack on Gao, and then the Romulan skirmishes, danger had seemed like a remote possibility. Now everybody knew it literally could lurk around any corner. Easy banter was gone; instead, they moved swiftly and quietly, weapons drawn and moods bleak.

So far, no one had suggested abandoning the missing crew members. The captain didn't think anyone would. Certainly not to his face, because everyone in his crew knew what his reaction to such a proposal would be. But although it was possible that some were thinking it, no one who would say it aloud would find a welcome on
Enterprise
. Kirk couldn't know every member of the crew before they were assigned to his ship, but once they were there he tried to gauge each one according to how well he or she lived up to the ideals that Starfleet promoted. He wanted people who possessed personal courage, who were willing to put the interests of the whole team above their own, and who would watch one another's backs as closely as their own. Some didn't meet that standard, and when he discovered that, he did his best to either turn them around or transfer them off the ship.

The captain trusted those who had volunteered for
this mission, and he would do everything in his power to get them back to the
Enterprise
alive. But that niggling doubt, that sensation that the conditions existing within the fold made this mission far more dangerous than anticipated, wouldn't go away. He was not, he knew, superhuman. He was just a man, and men sometimes failed.

Kirk pushed those thoughts into a metaphorical mental box and closed the lid. They were self-destructive, and he had no time for them. Later, if need be, he could take them out and examine them. For now, they were distracting him from the more important task of studying his surroundings.

This deck looked more like a typical starship's than the warehouse-style one above it. A narrow, utilitarian corridor was lined with doors along one side, leading into various engineering areas. Kirk was convinced they were getting close to the lowest decks. The possibility existed that Tikolo and the others had gone back up, by a different route, and were waiting around the upper decks wondering where everyone had gone. But Spock was up there—aware, Kirk hoped, of the Romulan threat—so if Tikolo's team found him they would stay close, knowing that reunion would come soon. Kirk worried about Spock, alone on this menace of a ship, but his first officer had proven himself hard to outflank. If he had to leave one member of the crew alone, Spock would be his first choice.

O'Meara had opened a door that led into a warren
of machinery, huge, primitive things that Kirk, looking over the security officer's shoulder, surmised had once provided propulsion and an artificial atmosphere. “This stuff looks ancient,” Kirk said. “Earth passed this sort of technology by 2120 or thereabouts.”

“Yes, sir,” O'Meara agreed. “On the other hand, anybody could service it with a big enough wrench and maybe a hammer. Convenient for a long trip, in case the engineers don't survive.”

He had been about to close the door again when Kirk heard a soft, clanking noise deep in the room's bowels. “Shh!” the captain ordered. O'Meara froze. A moment later, the noise repeated, joined by the low murmur of conversation.

“It's them,” O'Meara whispered.

“Not necessarily,” Kirk countered. He summoned the others from the hallway and explained. In a moment, they were moving silently through the big room in small groups, each one taking a different aisle through the machinery.

The room had gone absolutely silent. Kirk thought the first noise he'd heard had been someone walking through the aisles and bumping into the machinery. Chances were that, quiet as they had been, someone had heard the
Enterprise
crew coming in, and the listeners had gone to ground and were waiting for an ambush opportunity. The captain had conceded that advantage by dividing his team, but he had to balance caution and the necessity for finding
his missing people. If in fact the noise had been made by Tikolo and her squad, then no harm done. If it was more Romulans, then they would be ready for battle.

Romer's voice shattered the silence. “Here!” she cried. The sound of phasers firing followed, then the slightly different pitch of disruptor rifles returning fire, and the crackle of shots going astray.

The others converged on that aisle. Kirk went over the machines instead of around, and from that vantage point spotted half a dozen Romulan soldiers taking cover behind a bank of heavy equipment. He had an angle that allowed him to shoot over the top of their shelter, and he used it. Two Romulans fell quickly, but then he had to dive from his perch, because it also gave them an easy shot at him. Disruptor rays blasted where he had just been, tearing metal and sending sparks flying.

He touched down in the aisle that Romer and McCoy had been in from the start. The others had joined them, and from behind their own covered positions, were blasting away at the Romulans.

He tapped Beachwood and O'Meara and motioned toward the left. They understood, and followed him underneath a bank of machinery, then around the end of the next row. From there they worked their way quietly past the Romulans and cut over again.

The Romulans were still engaged with the Starfleet crew when Kirk once again climbed up on banks of
machinery. When the other two crew members were in position, he shouted. “Hey, you guys! Up here!”

Two of the Romulans spun around. Kirk's first shot took one in the chest. He ducked return fire, then Beachwood got the second. The last two Romulans tried to break and run, but were cut down by fire from the main Starfleet group.

With the fight over, Kirk, Beachwood, and O'Meara rejoined the main group. O'Meara called out Tikolo's name, and Kirk let him, knowing that the shout would draw in any remaining Romulans.