Claws 15

Ronnie

"It is impossible to get details," Saval tells me patiently, "without a high-resolution active scan. Given the reaction to Vice Admiral Shohl's tricorder, sir, that might prove hazardous."

I pace irritably from the science console to the command chair and back. "Can't help feeling we should be doing something," I mutter. "What's Gladys Pugh up to?"
  
"No detectable activity from the Goroke, sir," says Jhemyl.

"Doesn't mean anything. I wouldn't trust that unpronounceable as far as I could spit a rat into a headwind. Do we have anything on ground-level activities? What are they doing down there?"

"Sir," says Tallasa in her I must be very patient voice, "you told us to remind you about the need not to take any incautious action."

"Right. Right. Right. Don't want to accidentally open any gates to Gre'thor. This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway and all that. Right, got the message." I sit down in the command chair and sulk.

"Passive imaging at this distance shows some movement on the surface," says Saval. "Infrared radiation roughly consistent with humanoid life forms - number indeterminate, but definitely active in the vicinity of our landing parties." He adds in very nearly a sympathetic tone. "I realize this is very incomplete information, sir."

*/*all species should be subject to full analysis and assessment prior to assimilation
---data systems of unassimilated vessel not adequate for task
---face it you don't have a cat in hell's chance*/*

What was that?

"I said, sir, that I realize -" Saval begins.

"Oh, God. Not you. Out-loud voice, sorry." I clutch at the metal and plastic that's built into the side of my head. "Two of Twelve, she's -" I break off, blankly, because I'm not sure how to describe what Two of Twelve just did.

Saval and Tallasa start shooting meaningful glances at each other. I'm going to wake up sedated in sickbay if I'm not careful, and I hate waking up unconscious. Um. If that's the right way to put it, which I guess it isn't.

"OK, OK, OK," I say quickly. "I'm going to sickbay, voluntarily, of my own free will and without everyone shouting at me. Sure it must be time for my ten thousand mile service anyway." I stand up. "Tallasa, you have the conn. I want to be kept informed if anything happens worth being kept informed about. OK?"

"Yes, sir," says Tallasa. I get the feeling that she might tell me if the ship blows up, and any lesser crisis she will deal with by herself. Fine by me. I head for the turbolift.

---

Sickbay is pretty quiet, with one medic on duty, a small Trill */*species 2786*/* woman with mousy brown hair. She looks up as I approach and says, "Oh. Hello, stranger."

OK, so, she's not big on military protocol. Neither am I, so I can deal with that. "Hi," I say. "Remind me who you are, again?"

"Zodiri. Get on the bio-bed and let me run some scans."

I bridle a little at that. "I haven't even said what the problem is -"

"Whatever it is, I'm going to have to run some scans, so get on the damn bio-bed and save us both some time."

I get on the bio-bed and save us both some time. Two of Twelve makes random data-processing noises as the sensor fields tickle my Borg circuitry. "All right, checking you against human baseline," says Zodiri, as she does medical stuff at the bedside console, "cross-referencing Borg survivor data, uploading records of your last physical... short pause while those are translated from the original Sanskrit... you do know you've got multiple medical issues, yes?"

"Uh," I say, not being able to come up with a witty rejoinder.

"I know, I know," says Zodiri, "you're far too busy for the routine stuff, so you can't be bothered with regular checkups, you just muddle on through, self-medicating with adrenaline and Saurian brandy. Bloody marvellous. All right, you check out no more abnormal than usual. You still have too much Borg junk in your body, your brain wave patterns are still borderline manic, you are still experiencing auditory hallucinations, you are still anaemic and have a worryingly low BMI. Presumably, you're still not going to do anything about any of this, so why the hell are you pestering me?"

Not thinking much of her bedside manner so far. Never mind. "Two of Twelve has started acting weird," I say.

"Two of Twelve being the name you give to the auditory hallucinations coming from your residual Borg neural circuitry," says Zodiri. "Some people would just get a pet, you know. What's new about these, then?"

"She just told me I didn't have a cat in hell's chance of finding out what's going on, planet-side," I explain. "That is not normal Borg-programming-directive language."

"Hmm," says Zodiri. "All right, that's an interesting wrinkle. New development?"

"Yes," I say. "Wait. No. Back at Spacedock... 'you and me both', she said."

Zodiri nods pensively for a while. "It might be a good sign," she says, eventually. "If -" she makes air quotes with her fingers "- 'Two of Twelve' starts to develop a human personality, it might be 'her' neural pathways being suppressed and reintegrated into yours - which might mean that 'her' voice will disappear and 'her' personality will become yours. Not that your personality is anything to write home about, but, medically speaking, it'd be an improvement."

"Thanks a lot," I say. "Is this personal abuse part of the new Starfleet Medical training?"

"If you want to feel better about yourself as a person," says Zodiri, "go see one of the counselors. Assuming you can find one who doesn't scream and hide in a cupboard when they see you coming. Me, I'm just here for the medical stuff."

"Right. Well, I hope you're good at it," I mutter. "I suppose I'd better check in with Doc Haskell sometime soon, make sure he's up to date -"

"I don't think he'll be worried," says Zodiri. "If everything's gone to plan, he's enjoying his retirement in Bermuda right now, fishing for sharks by day and chasing beach bunnies in the evenings."

"He's what?. My chief medical officer quit? Why does nobody tell me this stuff? OK, who's the CMO now?"

"You're looking at her," says Zodiri. "If you don't like it, you shouldn't have signed the paperwork."

"Oh, God, I sign anything Tallasa puts in front of me. Saves time." I turn my head and take a good hard look at my new CMO. I want to be sure I recognize her if she comes up on me in a dark alley any time.

"Commander Tallasa," says Zodiri, "has sound judgment. You should sign whatever she gives you. I'm just glad someone on the bridge has some sort of sense. Anyway. If you're seriously worried about this development with the voice in your head, you'd better come back here on a daily basis so I can do some neural scans. It'd be good to have some idea of what's going on in your head."

"I don't know about that," I say, sitting up. "The inside of my head is a messy place, sometimes. I'm just worried...."

Zodiri sighs. "What about, exactly?"

"If I knew exactly, I wouldn't be so worried. I just feel...." I press my fingertips against my forehead. "Like Two of Twelve's wiring is getting worn out, and the crazy is starting to leak into her. That mechanical Borg voice in my head, I'm sort of used to the way it's so... predictable. If Two of Twelve is starting to crack under the strain too...." I sigh. "There was a crack in his head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death."

"Rudyard Kipling, 'The Phantom Rickshaw'," says Zodiri. Surprise must have shown in my face, because she adds, "What, you think you're the only person who's ever read a book?"

"Didn't think Trills read Kipling," I say, swinging my legs off the bed.

"I was educated on Earth," says Zodiri. "Besides, I made a point of following up your quotations. They used to drive Haskell mad, you know. No wonder he prefers sharks and beach bunnies." She shakes her head. "I wish I was with him, actually."

"You know what?" I say. "It's beginning to sound pretty appealing to me, too."

Claws 14

Tylha

There's a small office adjoining the long dormitory in the guest house, and T'Shomep has set up the control station on the desk there. The Vulcan is surrounded by glowing holo-displays, live data feeds from the drones we've placed around the Steadholding. I look out of the window at the darkening sky, and I tap my combadge.
  
"Shohl to all away teams. Night is falling. Return to the guest house and check in with your supervisors." I don't want any of my people outside when the sun goes down.

Rrueo and her people - all three of them - are already inside. The Ferasan's tail is switching nervously again. Rrueo has been acting skittish since we landed - come to think of it, she has been on edge from the first, before we beamed down to the ruins at Duselva WX, even. Something is preying on her mind... but what?

I pick up the book of prophecy again, as Rrueo stalks over towards me. "Your people are coming in?" she asks.

"We don't want to antagonize anyone."

"Very wise." She points to the book. "Have you found anything in that?"

I sigh. "It's... much the sort of stuff you might expect. I've been cross-referencing it with the Steadholder's more mundane records - the incidents I can verify seem to be pretty accurate."

Rrueo nods. "The stuff you might expect," she repeats in pensive tones.

"In a way," I say, "that bothers me. It's the sort of quasi-religious tome you'd find in many mediaeval societies... but this isn't a mediaeval society, despite some appearances. It's a colony - and one founded by one of the most significant interstellar nations in the quadrant." Whatever I might think of the Klingon Empire, there's no doubting its importance.

"Klingons, whatever else they may be, are pragmatists," says Rrueo. "They are not given to religiosity.... The only way Rrueo can see Klingons trusting to a book of prophecy -"

"- is if it worked," I finish for her.

"Exactly. Which suggests to Rrueo that the sleeping giant, here, has power either to foretell the future, or to make a foretelling and then arrange for it to come true." She combs her whiskers with one claw. "Rrueo inclines to the latter explanation. The sleeping giant has power to destroy ships in space - or to deform molecular structures here on the ground. Your human idiot has helped Rrueo to establish that, at least."

"Human idiot?"

"He calls himself Harley Haught. Call him that, if you disagree with Rrueo's characterization."

I'm not entirely sure I do disagree, but I give a disapproving grunt. If my officers need insulting, I will do it myself, not leave it to the KDF. "You've been working with Dr. Haught?"

"On these khala plants. Thirty per cent of their arable land is devoted to these plants, and they do nothing except fix some complex tellurium compounds. There is a mystery here, and Rrueo does not believe in multiple coincidental mysteries. It is all of a piece."

"According to the records, these khala plants were brought by the overlord -" I break off as Zazaru appears in the door of the office.

"All teams have reported in, sir," she says. "Everyone is indoors and accounted for."

"Thank you." I glance at the window. "Everyone is to stay indoors until dawn."

"Yes, sir."

I turn back to Rrueo. "And your crew?"

"They have similar orders. Rrueo is not a fool."

I go to the window and look out at the deepening purple of the sunset. "I can't see any movement out there," I mutter.

"Rrueo suspects it is best not to look," says Rrueo.

"Nothing new on the drones, sir," T'Shomep reports.

"If we knew where these... servitors... were coming from...." I'm muttering, mostly to myself.

"They may beam in," says Rrueo. "R'j detected no transporter signatures, but that means nothing." She yawns, displaying acres of pink tongue... and needle-pointed fangs. "Or it may be that the servitors are the Tiazans themselves - operating under some hypnotic compulsion, or as a gestalt entity."

"An interesting theory," I concede.

"Rrueo would not dignify it with the name of theory. Barely even a hypothesis... an idle speculation, no more. We do not know."

"Maybe the drones will tell us more," I say.

"Rrueo thinks the drones are unwise. But as you will."

"You're genuinely worried about this - sleeping giant, then."

"Naturally. Dahar Master Juregh's forces did not anticipate significant resistance, but they were alert, combat-ready, and armed. They were destroyed, to the last man, within minutes of sunset. Rrueo has no ambition to share their fate."

"Neither do I." I check my tricorder. "Local sunset... just about now. The actual solar disc will already be occluded behind those hills...."

"You expect these creatures to be punctual?" Rrueo asks. She sounds breezily cynical, now, but I notice she has a Klingon tricorder in one hand.

"Sensor contacts," says T'Shomep. "Reading...." She quirks her eyebrow at the displays. "I have no more than an atmospheric disturbance... a change of air pressure -"

Then her eyes widen. "Sensor drones have ceased to register," she says - unnecessarily, for I can see the data feeds winking out, myself. We deployed some twenty drones in a pattern around the Steadholding - and all of them have gone dead, simultaneously.

I glance at Rrueo. "What about your drones?" I ask.

"Rrueo did not deploy drones, considering them unwise." She looks ruefully at her tricorder. "Rrueo did deploy some discreet passive sensors devised by Klingon Intelligence. They, too, have been rendered inoperative."

I pull my own tricorder from my belt. "Maybe I can get some sort of scan through the walls of this place...."

"Rrueo would not advise it."

I switch on the scan and turn towards the window. The display panel shows the scanner establishing a baseline - and then, suddenly, it glimmers in a riot of colours before going blank. The tricorder grows suddenly warm, then hot, in my hand. I drop it with a yelp, and it sparks and smokes as it hits the floor.

"Rrueo will resist the temptation to point out that Rrueo told you so."

I glare at the Ferasan. "We'll wait, and watch. Maybe one of these things will pass by a window -"

As if on cue, there comes a clacking sound from the window. Every one of the mullioned windowframes is fitted with a heavy wooden louvre, and the louvre on this one has just been closed, gently but firmly, from the outside. As I stare at it, there comes the sound of another one being closed, and another, and another.... Someone, or something, is walking along the wall of the guest house, closing each shutter as it goes.

I swallow hard, and fight down the feeling of atavistic dread that rises within me.

"All right," I say softly, to whatever is outside. "All right. You want your privacy. We will respect that."

We stand there, by the dead tricorder and the inactive displays, and we wonder who, or what, is moving through the night outside.

Claws 13

Rrueo

The guest house is a long, low building, connected to the main house by a covered passageway. Most of it is taken up by a single long room, with many wooden beds. There are mattresses stuffed with straw. I have slept in worse places, but I think I may beam back to the Anar rather than rest here.
  
There is room, at least, for a number of us, both my people and Shohl's. All of a sudden, there seem to be black uniforms with blue shoulder stripes everywhere: Starfleet scientists. And a number with red shoulders instead of blue, because Shohl, whatever her other vices, is no fool. The Betazoid is there, and the Vulcan... and the scientists include the ghost-white presence of the Aenar....

The Anar's science division is not as numerous as I would like it, and I have only three officers on the surface now: Toriash, my Gorn head of the division, the Nausicaan biologist Nulnis, and the big Lissepian doctor, Siowxayer. Perhaps I can borrow more people from R'j, who has returned to her ship with a great deal of ill grace.

Or perhaps it does not matter. I walk out into the fields, squint up at the early afternoon sun, sniff the air with its sweet scents, and try to work out how much of this world is a stage property created by the power that has brought us here. Tiaza Zephora's "overlord". Or - a phrase of Grau's has stuck in my mind. She called it a "sleeping giant". Perhaps it is apt.

The scent is strange. I have never smelled anything quite like it, and it comes from the plants. They are tall, perhaps three metres tall, with stems that I can barely close my thumb and forefinger around; their leaves are broad and spatulate, and at the top each plant swells into a bulbous pod. Some of these pods, it seems, are ripening, their green surfaces splitting open to reveal many dark oval shapes, close packed within - seeds, perhaps? I walk between the rows of plants, my eyes narrowed. Grau said something about the roots....

Before I can turn my attention to the roots, though, something catches my eye. One of the Starfleet scientists, a dark-haired, light-skinned human male, is also in the field of plants, and I see him reach up to one of the splitting pods. He prises out a seed, or whatever it is, and I watch almost in fascination as he draws it down to his mouth -

Then I spring, my muscles driving me forward in a prodigious bound, and I slap the thing from his hand as I reach him -

"Human idiot!" I snarl.

He turns to face me, his mind-tone full of confusion, mild hurt, outrage and a pleasing whiff of fear. "What the -?"

"What do you think you are doing?"

"I just - well, I just wondered how they taste...."

"Human idiot! Suppose they taste like death?"

"Hold on," he says. His face is starting to turn a deeper shade of pink. "Look, humans and Klingons are more or less biologically compatible, so I can eat anything these guys can eat, right? So -"

"Three things to consider," I hiss at him. "First, the Tiazans have changed from the Klingon base genome through genetic drift and planetary acclimatization. Second, there are many plants which need careful preparation before they can be safely eaten. Third, we do not know if the Tiazans even use this plant as a foodstuff! - Do you see now why you should exercise caution? Do they even bother to train you at that Starfleet Academy?"

"I -" His face is bright pink now. His mind-tone is one of abject mortification. "I... wasn't thinking. I'm sorry. Thank you."

"Rrueo did not do it for you. Rrueo simply does not want the inconvenience of having to explain to Shohl why you dropped dead at Rrueo's feet."

"Rrueo? You're the Klink - er - KDF commander? Oh boy." He shakes his head ruefully. "Well, I'm Harley Haught, if you need to know."

"Harley Haught." I give him a forbidding glare. "That name was given you at birth, yes? In Rrueo's culture, names are earned. Rrueo will refer to you by the name you earn, which so far is human idiot."

He swallows hard, but holds in a flash of anger. "Actually... I guess that's fair enough."

"Good." I hold out my hand. "Let me see that thing you tried to kill yourself with."

He drops the - seed, for want of a better word - into my palm. I pull out my scanner and wave the sensor over it. "Complex organics," I mutter, more to myself than to Haught. "And... tellurium compounds. Plentiful. Probably not enough to kill you... certainly enough to make you wish they had."

Haught frowns at that. "Tellurium?"

"You have heard of the metal? Rrueo does not believe even Starfleet Academy is that deficient."

"Yeah, but...." Haught looks around, and breathes in deeply. "This stuff, how does it smell to you?"

"Pleasant. Your point?"

"Well, I don't know how Ferasan noses work, maybe... but it smells nice to me, too, and if it's loaded with tellurium compounds... they should reek. To a human."

"Hmm. That is a point... and I did not know human noses were even that sensitive." I kneel down in the rich, dark soil. "Your Admiral Grau said something about the roots of these things," I say. Haught kneels down beside me, and we brush at the soil beside the stem of one plant.

"That is odd," Haught says. "I mean, I'm no botanist, but...."

"Neither is Grau." I smooth my whiskers with one claw. "What is your speciality?"

"Geology, mainly. That stem doesn't even look like it has roots. It just... goes straight down."

I dig my fingers into the dirt, bring it out in handfuls. A few centimetres further down, I feel something... I brush away more earth. "A leaf. What sort of plant is it that grows leaves beneath the surface of the soil?"

"A very odd one," says Haught. He pulls out a tricorder. "I'm reading... hmm. What does that look like to you?" He holds the device out to me.

I take it from him. "Stupid Federation interface," I mutter, peering at the display. "But... it is clear enough. There is a mass, perhaps twenty metres down. And the plants... grow out of it." I hand the tricorder back, pull out my own scanner. "Rich in tellurium."

"This is crazy," Haught says. "Why the hell are they growing this... whatever it is... if they can't even use it? I mean... they haven't drifted that far from the basic Klingon genome, have they? To the point where they can digest tellurium compounds?"

"They would have to drift away from oxygen-breathing life, in that case." I frown. "That Starfleet gadget - you claim to be a geologist, yes? Can it close-scan molecular structures?"

"Well, sure, it's got full dimensional crystallography imaging - why, hasn't yours?"

"Not this unit. Scan the tellurium compounds. Rrueo wants to see these molecules."

I access the data library on my scanner while Haught fiddles with his device. "Think I've got it," he says. "There.... Hmm. Maybe I haven't."

"Or maybe you have," I say.

"I don't know. It looks - well, off - somehow."

I look from the image on his tricorder to the one on my scanner, and back again. "Rrueo suspects," I say, "that it looks off, because it is off. It might even explain the smell." The molecule on Haught's tricorder has the same components as the one on my screen... and they link together in the same way, they cannot do otherwise... but Haught's image is bent, distorted, some bonds lengthened, some shortened, the shape of the molecule twisted out of true. "Rrueo will tell you two further suspicions," I say. "First, that the isotopes in that compound do not match the normal pattern of isotopic abundance for this world... second, that that difference does not account for the distortion of the molecular structure."

Haught is frowning in naked bewilderment. "So what is causing it?"

"Rrueo's guess? A giant." More bewilderment. "Grau's phrase. The sleeping giant - the overlord of Tiaza Zephora. The giant is sleeping on this world, and the weight of his slumbering frame is bending these molecules out of shape." I look the human straight in the eye. "Rrueo thinks we should be very, very careful not to wake this giant."

Claws 12

Ronnie
  So, OK, I'm conflicted about these guys.

On the one hand, gratifyingly quick response to pre-teen girl shrieking her head off, whole bunch of them came running to help, highly commendable, good citizens and all that. On the other hand, they are holding sharp things up against my throat, so maybe they won't make my Christmas card list this year. Like I say, I'm conflicted.

They've taken the four of us to what looks like your typical Dark Ages manor house, lots of elaborate wood carving, and what I swear are mullioned windows, and I don't even want to think about what the sanitary facilities must be like. We're being - well, not dragged, exactly, but definitely a bit more than escorted - into what looks like a throne room, complete with a throne. At least, an impressively decorated big chair, with an ill-looking elderly Klingon sitting in it.

They are clearly Klingons */*species 5008*/*, still, these people. Maybe not the warrior-culture Klingons half the galaxy knows and doesn't love, but still the same species. However, they're clearly not a warrior culture, as I can tell from the lousy way they're guarding us.

OK, so three of them have blades held pretty much right up against my jugular, remember not to nod too vigorously, Ronnie. But they haven't even taken my phaser - maybe they don't recognize it as a weapon. They haven't taken Tylha's phaser, either, and nobody seems to be keeping an eye on her at all, much less a blade.

They have taken R'j's two disruptors and Rrueo's single one. But if the */*species 10118*/* include telekinetics, like Tylha says they do, I'd be surprised if R'j wasn't one of them. As for Rrueo - well, quite. They've taken a disruptor pistol off the six foot tall genetically augmented hunting cat. I'm sure we all feel much safer for that.

Also, the blades they're holding on me are traditional Klingon mek'leths, and if there was a competition for the most elaborately useless hand weapon ever devised, the mek'leth would at least get an honourable mention. The fancy curved shape means you can't stab with it, it's too heavy in the blade to fence with it effectively, and those projecting tines and spikes will snag on everything in sight. Putting a hand grip on a bit of scrap metal does not turn it into an effective weapon. But they are spiky and shiny, so you can sell them to Klinks. Even, apparently, pacifist Klinks.

Not that these guys look particularly pacifist just now. Especially one of them, standing behind the ill-looking guy on the throne, and fingering a mek'leth in a way that suggests somebody's going to get hurt pretty soon.

Wish I knew what I'd done to upset these people. Normally, I have to work at it a bit before things get this bad.

"It is true," throne-guy says. "It is the Grau."

"Well, um," I say, "I'm certainly a Grau, but let's not jump to any conclusions yet, shall we?"

"Steadholder Sharm," R'j pipes up.

Throne-guy fixes her with a glare. "You were with - those who came before. I remember you."

"Steadholder, she spoke for us," the kid chimes in. Well, at least I didn't scare her quite speechless. "I believe she does not mean us harm."

Throne-guy looks less than convinced. "You have a good heart, Nejje," he says. "But, at the very least, this one chooses her friends unwisely. First the Klingons, and now -" he waves a hand at me.

"Look," I say, a bit more plaintively than I meant to, "can someone at least tell me what I'm meant to have done?"

Throne-guy turns to the mek'leth-fingering head case. "Fetch the book of prophecy," he orders. Oh boy. No way is this going to turn out well, I can feel it in my water.

"Steadholder, may I speak?" Tylha. She's trying to sound sensible. Actually, she probably is the most sensible person in the room, not that the competition is all that stiff. Throne-guy looks at her a bit uncertainly, but nods. "Thank you," says Tylha. "Steadholder, after the attack on your people by my associate here -" she indicates R'j "- she attempted to make contact with my people, for reasons I'm not sure she's completely explained. I represent the United Federation of Planets. We are not allies of the Klingon Empire, in fact we're currently at war with the Klingons."

"So, why are you here?" asks throne-guy. His angry-looking sidekick has sloped off, presumably fetching this book of prophecy. Damn it, that is bound to be bad news. "Do you, too, seek to use our world for military advantage?"

"That - might be a factor, I have to admit it." No, you stiffnecked blue goon, you don't, damn it. "At the very least, we would want to be sure the Klingons are unable to gain a military advantage - but, beyond that...." Tylha takes a step forward. "There's a mystery here, and the more we investigate, the stranger it gets. We're not like the Klingons - yes, we will fight in our own defence, but we are primarily explorers and scientists, not warriors. We want to know what's happening here." She glances at me. "All the more so because it seems to involve my friend here. Steadholder, I know this woman and I would vouch for her, as a fellow officer and as a friend. I don't understand why you should - react so strongly to her."

"She is the Grau," the Steadholder says. "It is written in the book of prophecy - ah, Tallaun returns." With the book in one hand and his mek'leth in the other. He'll have someone's eye out with that thing if he's not careful. "Let me show you."

He stands up, slowly, and takes the book from his surly underling. It's an old-fashioned book, not a datapad or something; looks like it's bound in leather. It's not very big. He opens it, flicks through a couple of pages, and then says, "There." He holds it up, the page facing us.

The full-page illustration is obviously hand-drawn, and pretty crude. But the face, pale, narrow and gaunt... the spiky dark hair... the single eye on the right side, the Borg eyepiece on the left... it's all too plainly me. Not what you'd call flattering, but clearly recognizable.

"I will read the prophecy," says the Steadholder. "The Grau will come in the last days, with fire at her command and the cold voice in her mind. She will look twice into the abyss and break it on her third attempt, will lose herself to the men of steel only to regain herself... and at her touch the gates of Gre'thor shall be opened, and everything shall change."

Everyone is looking at me, now. I swallow hard, hard enough that I can feel the edges of those blades by my throat.

"All right," I say, "it looks like me, and some of that - that prophecy - sounds like it might have something to do with me. But I'm not here to open Gre'thor, why would I want to do anything like that? I'm not here to harm anyone...."

"Steadholder," the kid pipes up now, "I was scared when I saw her... but she does not talk like a demon...." Well, thanks for that, at least.

"Little one," says the Steadholder, "harm may come whether it is intended or not."

"If this book of prophecy is accurate," R'j says, "then you must face the possibility that whatever it foretells is inevitable."

"Oh, I don't believe that," I say. "I've never given any credit to the notion that we're all pawns in the hands of inevitable fate. You make your own destiny in this world."

*/*possible inaccuracy---
presence of physical/temporal anomalies indicates possibility of predestination paradox---
conceivable that timeline is not susceptible to alteration---*/*

Thanks for that, Two of Twelve, that was a big lot of no help.

"Does this book of prophecy predict anything else?" Tylha asks. "Did it, for instance, predict the arrival of Juregh's forces?"

The Steadholder flips back a couple of pages in the book. "Warriors of the old time will come," he intones, "and they shall bring fire and anger, but the claws of the overlord shall be raised against them and they shall fall." It looks like there's another illustration, too, but he doesn't show it to us.

"This brings us to... a matter which concerns us," says R'j. "How was Dahar Master Juregh's force overwhelmed and destroyed? What are these 'claws of the overlord'?"

The Steadholder looks at her suspiciously. Can't blame him for that. The general impression I get is that neither R'j nor I is exactly flavour of the month around here.

Unexpectedly, it is the angry guy who answers. "The overlord came to our people more than five generations ago," he says, "and brought the khala plants, and peace and prosperity, and in return asked only that his servitors pass unmolested. They come in the night, and if all is peaceful, they come as the hands of the overlord and all is well. But, when your Dahar Master brought his anger and his toys -" he waves one of R'j's disruptors in his hand, and I hope the safety's on "- then the servitors came as claws. And none can withstand the claws."

"But what are they?" asks Tylha. "A native lifeform? Artificial servitors? What?"

"They are the hands of the overlord and we do not question them," says the Steadholder. "And we are wise not to - as your leader found out, to his cost." He resumes his seat on the throne. His expression is... weary, and troubled.

"Perhaps our fate cannot be avoided," he says, and he seems to be speaking half to himself. "But we must do what we can... but we must hold by the laws of our people." He raises his head. "You." He points at me. "And you." His finger turns towards R'j. "We cannot allow your presence. You have committed no wrongs, so we may not slay you or imprison you. But you must leave. I order your departure from my Steadholding, and any other Steadholder will do the same, at best... you are best advised to leave this world. As for your associates...."

He stands up, walks over to Tylha, and looks up at her. She is taller than him. "If you truly come to learn," he says, "then you may have guest-right and the use of our guesting house. It will accommodate a number of your people." He glances at Rrueo. "This one, too, may have the guest-right. I warn you both, do not interfere with the hands of the overlord. Remain indoors at night, always."

"Thank you, Steadholder Sharm," says Tylha, gravely.

"Rrueo also thanks you," says Rrueo. "May we speak with your overlord?"

The Steadholder shakes his head. "It would be unwise," he says. "It might be unavoidable... but it would be unwise." He gestures at the guys holding their mek'leths at my throat. "Release her."

The blades come down. A little reluctantly, I think, but they come down. "Thank you," I say. "All right, I'm departing." I touch my combadge. "Grau to Falcon. One to beam up."

Claws 11

Ever since what had happened, Nejje had grown into the habit of watching the sky fearfully.
 
It had affected them all, she thought. Sharm was worst; he sat and brooded on the chair of state, and barely noticed what was going on around him, even now, when the harvest was nearly ready. Tallaun, the new Magistrate, was harsh and loud, angry all the time. Everyone seemed angry or fearful... or perhaps the anger grew from the fear.

And Nejje watched the sky. But mostly, she watched in vain; only the familiar constellations circled slowly overhead.

It was before dawn when she awoke, and she tiptoed down from her room, careful to disturb no one. She went out through a side door, into the heady aroma of the khala fields, and looked up. The sun was gilding the horizon with the faintest of pale glows, and the stars were bright and sharp in a cloudless sky....

Nejje's heart leapt. There were new stars.

Four of them, in a tight little group, a diamond sliding swiftly across the sky. Not so many, she thought, as when the Klingons had come. Did it mean... something different? She paused, wondering what to do next. Should she waken the household? Should they prepare for... whatever was to come? But what might that be?

And then, above the slow sounds of wakening birds and animals in the countryside around her, she heard something else, a thin shrill whining sound - and with it, there came a sudden glow from somewhere on the other side of the khala field.

Nejje slipped between the plants, treading carefully, evoking barely a rustle from the greenery as she moved between the thick stems, holding her breath, wondering what she would see. If it was more Klingons - she could warn the household, at least, she thought. Though the day ahead might be a grim one - until nightfall.

There was a faint sound of voices from ahead of her. Nejje crouched down, making her way between the plants now with painstaking slowness. Voices, movement - tall shapes stalking along the edge of the field -

Her eyes widened. She knew one of them.

Impulsively, she stood, stepped out of the shelter of the plants. "You were here before," she said.

The tall green monster's silvery eyes widened. "Ttt'kkk-fff'drri!" She paused, recovered herself, said in that rasping whisper, "Yes. Yes, I was."

"I remember you," said Nejje. "You spoke for us. To the bad people."

"I -" The monster blinked. "I - did what I could. What was permitted of me. My commanding officer -"

"He was a bad man." Nejje looked up at the monster. "I don't think you are as bad as him. Who is that with you?"

"I -" The monster looked around her in apparent confusion. "This is - my associate. Rrueo."

The other one had been following a few paces behind the green monster. Nejje smiled as she came closer. "You are furry!" she said.

The blue-furred creature blinked at her. "Rrueo - yes, Rrueo is... furry."

Nejje stepped forward. This one was dressed in leather like the Klingons, but she was very plainly not of the same kind. The monsters, Nejje thought, the monsters are the good ones.... And now, here came another monster, tall and blue, dressed in plain black cloth with a yellow stripe over her shoulders, and with antennae twitching in the white hair on her head. Clearly, this was a woman, with a face that was stern and severe, but not unfriendly. When she spoke, it was in a soft, high-pitched tone. "You're a native of this planet? My name's Tylha Shohl. I'm - " The blue monster paused, seeming to take stock of Nejje. "I'm a friend," she said at last, "or at least I'd like to be. What's your name?"

"I am Nejje." She pointed to the green woman. "And I remember, this one's name is Blek, and this one -" she turned to the furry one "- is Rrueo. Are they your friends?"

The blue one - Tylha - smiled a bit wryly at that. "Sort of. For the moment."

"R'j Bl'k'," said the green one. "My name is R'j Bl'k'."

"Oh," said Nejje, "the bad man, Juregh, he didn't know how to say your name properly?" She considered for a moment. "It is a bit hard."

"Perhaps," said R'j. "In any case... we would like to speak to your Steadholder. If that is permitted." She looked over her shoulder. "There are four of us -"

"Oh, yeah," a new voice broke in. "Sorry, I was looking at these plants. Have you seen those roots? They're weird. Anyway, yeah." A fourth figure stepped out of the pre-dawn dimness. "Oh, hi there. Veronika Grau, call me Ronnie, everyone does."

This one wore black cloth like Tylha, but with a red stripe over her shoulders, and above it, her face -

Nejje took one look, and screamed.

Claws 10

R'j

I pace the length and breadth of the ready room, cursing under my breath. "I do not believe in coincidences," I snap at the screen.

"Rrueo does," Rrueo replies, over what we hope is a secure comms link. "But not at this level."

"We need to understand this. Is it a message? Aimed at Grau? Why Grau?"

"You need to understand this," says Rrueo. "It is clear to Rrueo that we are dealing with a reality manipulator, something of the order of the being Q. Any reasonable person would, therefore, be heading away from this whole situation at maximum warp speed. Sadly, you have never, even in the dimmest light, been mistaken for a reasonable person."

"S-s-s-s-s. You do not understand. This situation has arisen, it must be confronted. Should we leave it for others to risk their lives? Others who may be less capable than we are?"

"You and Grau," says Rrueo, "would seem to be sisters under the skin. Apparently, she took exactly that attitude towards the temporal anomaly known as the Stygmalian Rift. And, apart from the temporal displacement, the loss of all her personal relationships, the Borg assimilation and the serious psychiatric consequences, it worked out well for her."

"So," I say, "Grau has the most exotic background... perhaps that is how she has drawn this being's attention. What of the body? Do we have information on the USS Erebus?"

"A survey vessel, lost by Starfleet shortly after the Organian conflict. They lost a number of their long range explorers - it is a hazardous business. According to the records Shohl has made available, the Erebus went missing somewhere near Epsilon Orionis - but distance is, clearly, not a factor to our unknown adversary."

I sit down at my desk. The pieces of the Reflective Game glint, but I have long since lost track of which move it was. "No explanation is forthcoming, then."

"If the Feds know anything, they are not telling us," says Rrueo. "And why should they, after all?"

"S-s-s-s-s." Of course, there is much we are not telling the Feds - the fact that the entire arcology is nothing but a stage property magicked into existence by a superpower, for example. "Well, then. Turning to practical matters. How long now to Tiaza Zephora?"

"Thirty-six hours flight time. For us - the King Estmere could do it in a fraction of the time. Rrueo wishes they would. If King Estmere went on ahead, the two of us would be a match for the Falcon alone."

"I do not contemplate attacking the Falcon. Yet. As for the King Estmere...." I smile. "I have some hopes in that direction."

"Rrueo is glad you have hopes. Rrueo has only worries. For instance... the Feds hope to find a translator for the alien symbols at Tiaza Zephora."

"Wishful thinking. The symbols are nothing more than set dressing on the fake ruins. But it does no harm for them to chase phantoms."

"This is what worries Rrueo. Has it occurred to you that the entity's actions have had the effect of turning your lies into the truth? By the time we reach the planet, there may well be meaning behind those symbols, and a native capable of reading them."

"Useless to speculate. Though, if my lies are to be turned to truths... there is at least one reason why I should be concerned over that."

---

Tiaza Zephora gleams beneath us, a poison jewel of an M-class world, its blue oceans and verdant continents decorated with white swirls of cloud.

I should feel more secure - this system is, after all, nominally on the Klingon side of the border. But Shohl and Grau have the resources to fight their way out, if it comes to that... and in any case, the real threat comes from the planet.

In my mind's eye, I can still see those ships burning.

I recite a sutra, to clear my mind. I relax a little on the command couch, and signal for communications to be established with the other ships. A motley assortment we make, too, I muse: the rakish, sprawling lines of the Goroke contrasting with the spiky insectile look of Rrueo's Anar, with the malevolent crystalline bulk of King Estmere, with the traditional Starfleet design of Grau's Falcon. A more mismatched fleet would be hard to imagine.

Now, the three faces of my fellow commanders appear on the main viewer. "So," I say, "now that we are here, how should we proceed?"

"Have you detected anything new since the abortive invasion attempt?" Shohl asks. I could quibble with her phrasing, I suppose, but....

"Nothing that I can detect from high orbit," I answer. "I could go in for a closer scan, except... the Goroke might be remembered from the previous incident. I have no wish to provoke further hostility."

Shohl takes the bait with alacrity. "King Estmere is rated for atmospheric operations." Ah, she is proud of her ship - might that be her undoing. "An ionospheric pass won't violate that fifty-kellicam safe limit. Setting course now."

I refrain from smiling. A few creative edits were made in the recording of my trial, before Shalo gave it to the Feds... most importantly, the number "one hundred and twenty" being replaced by "fifty". On the tactical display, I watch as King Estmere points her needle nose towards the low orbitals.

Whatever happens, I gain data. And if King Estmere vanishes in an antimatter explosion, I need shed no tears.

Laska calls off the distances in an undertone. As if she fears Shohl will hear her. "Four hundred kellicams... three fifty... three hundred kellicams... two fifty... two hundred... one fifty...." Emphasis edges her voice as she says, "One twenty... one hundred kellicams... seventy-five. The Fed ship is holding in low orbit at range seventy-five kellicams."

And remains obstinately unexploded. So, I gain nothing but data. Never mind.

"I'm trying something," says Shohl over the comms link. "Hold on."

"Trying what?" Grau demands.

"Launching a type 8 shuttle on autopilot," Shohl says. "Programming a descent to fifty kilometers." About half what she believes is the critical distance - which may now actually be the critical distance. Is this entity determined to make a truth-teller of me? Perhaps I should thank it.

I cut in my own communications. "An unmanned shuttlecraft can hardly be regarded as a threat," I point out.

"King Estmere isn't a threat," Shohl says. "At least, not to the inhabitants of this world... at least, she's not meant that way."

"S-s-s-s-s. You think the entity is capable of reading hostile intent?"

"Could be. All we know about it is that it's got powers we don't understand. Launching shuttle."

The type 8 shuttle is a tiny dot beside the bulk of the King Estmere. Laska frowns as she adjusts the tracking scan, and resumes her monologue. "Seventy kellicams... sixty-five... sixty... fifty-five... fifty... forty-five... forty... thirty-five...." She stops. We watch in silence as the little craft descends to the point where its trail in the planet's atmosphere is clearly visible.

"All right." Shohl's voice. "Minimum altitude of fifty kilometres. Either the killing effect is turned off, or it's reading peaceful intent and letting harmless ships through - for the moment, at least." Her scarred face quirks in a brief smile. "I'm recovering the shuttle and returning the King Estmere to geosynchronous orbit. Just in case."

"All righty, then," says Grau. "The entity isn't in kill-on-sight mode. That's good news. So, I guess our next step is obvious." She grins, wildly and lopsidedly. "Obvious to us Starfleet types, anyway."

"And that obvious step is...?" I ask.

"Go down and introduce ourselves. Say hello."

Claws 9

Tylha

There is the hiss of my breath in the respirator, the dull clunking sound of my boots on the ancient stone. There is no other sound. This world is airless, barren, desolate. And yet -

I look up. The buildings of the arcology tower over me, great looming crags of masonry, curving and overhanging like talons against the black sky. They are so tall - even in the weak gravity of this planet, about a third that of Andoria, they are still at the limits of what's physically possible without antigravs or force-field reinforcement. The only place I've seen bigger building is inside the Dyson Spheres... and, of course, there, since there is effectively no gravity inside the sphere except that provided by local grav generators, the spires can rise to any height.

Inside, and around the bases, of the towers... are catacombs. There is no other way to describe the labyrinth of irregularly-shaped little rooms, linked by narrow meandering corridors. The science and exploration teams have spent hours, already, mapping only a tiny fraction of one of the megastructures... and they have yet to find any rhyme or reason to any of it.

There are no bodies, humanoid or otherwise. We hypothesize, based on the size of the rooms and corridors, that the inhabitants of the arcology were smaller than the average humanoid - but it's just a guess. There are no indications of the functions of the rooms. Odd things are missing - none of the rooms we've mapped seems to have any sort of plumbing connections, for instance. Did these creatures not drink, or wash, or excrete?

And there are no lights - except for the walls.

I stop to stare at one wall. It is covered with a sort of film, a thin but immensely durable coating... and on that coating, glowing symbols move. Each glyph is about the size of my hand, it glows with a soft blue-green light, and it drifts, slowly and randomly, across the surface. Sometimes, when two glyphs collide, they recoil away from each other - or, sometimes, they cross over each other, merging and then separating. There seem to be no rules governing them. I have yet to see two symbols the same, too, though they all share similar characteristics - looping and spiralling lines with feathery strokes around them. Every little room has at least one wall covered in the glyphs - most have several.

There is a slight change in the light; I turn. The space-suited figure before me would be anonymous, except that her faceplate is lit up by the targeting laser over her eye. "Hello, Ronnie," I say.

"Getting anywhere?" Ronnie steps up to the wall, stands facing it with arms akimbo, as if she's challenging it to a fight.

"Nothing yet," I say. "We've run about seventeen thousand of these symbols through King Estmere's linguistics databanks, with no real results. A few positive matches, but it looks like they're just pure coincidence."

"His first important invention was the Crispine alphabet," Ronnie mutters, "consisting of only one character which has not yet been deciphered." I think she's talking to herself, but the proximity comms on the suits let me hear her. "They look blurry, or is that just my eye?"

"The coating is an energized graphene," I say. "We think it draws ambient power from either solar or geothermal sources. And it's a little bit degraded. Graphenes are tough, but this coating has been in place a long time."

"Any idea how long?"

"Take a guess. Mine is... somewhere around a hundred thousand years."

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls." I think it's another quotation. Sometimes I wonder if Ronnie is actually human, or a Tamarian with a nose job. "Can't you get anywhere with the universal translators?"

I sigh loudly, loudly enough for her to hear. "Ronnie, do you have any idea how the universal translator actually works?"

"Well, of course not, that's the sort of detail I leave to the highly skilled and much appreciated technical types like you. You know how I work. Push it till it goes, hit it till it breaks."

"Right. There are basic components of linguistic thought - identifiable atomic propositions. I think it was one of your countrymen, Wittgenstein, who first came up with the concept, back on Earth. They're fundamental to the way a conscious mind reacts to the external world, and the patterns they create are identifiable in any kind of consciousness substrate - whether it's an organic brain, or a crystalline one, or even a pattern of pure energy. The universal translator's subquantum detectors pick up those patterns, relate their occurrence to the spoken word - or whatever sort of language production's going on - and generates utterances in our languages that correspond to the same patterns. With me?"

"Ah," says Ronnie. "Not entirely."

"The point is," I say, "there has to be mentation going on. Thought. The language has to be spoken by a conscious being whose brainwaves the UT can pick up. Written language, like here - there's no mind behind it, so we can't translate it that way."

"Um," says Ronnie. "So, the only way we're going to find out what this means... is if we can get someone to read it aloud? Someone who knows the lingo?"

"Unless we can find some match for the script in the linguistics banks, and that's looking less and less likely. Or do our KDF allies know different?"

"Buxton is sure as hell twitchy about something," says Ronnie. "It might just be that she has to walk around with her tail shoved down one leg of her EV suit, but I don't think so. Pretty much a given, though, that they've got something up their sleeves.... Gladys is running around trying to match patterns with whatever she's got stored on her datapads, and I think she's as baffled as we are. Patterns," she adds, in a thoughtful tone. "Sentient beings are awfully good at finding patterns that match. Sometimes, even if they're not actually there - remember the face on Mars?"

"Um. No?"

"Fair enough, then. Anyway." She turns to face me. "If we need someone who speaks alien-drifting-graffiti, there's only one place we might even stand a chance of finding one."

"Tiaza Zephora," I say.

"Right. Right. I'm seriously thinking this place is some kind of dead end. Or red herring. Possibly both."

"We've only explored an infinitesimally small fraction of the megastructure," I say. "All right, it's the part that R'j said might be relevant -"

"But we have no guarantee that Gladys is right," says Ronnie, "even if she's telling the truth. No, kiddo, I think we should leave this place as a fascinating riddle for future archaeologists, and be on our merry way to where the actual action is."

"Maybe." I stare at the enigmatic shifting patterns on the wall. "If this place really has any connection to Tiaza Zephora...."

"Don't see how it can't be connected," Ronnie mutters.

Then my communicator beeps. "Shohl here," I say, touching my wrist.

"Vice Admiral Shohl." A harsh rasping whisper: R'j. "We have discovered something - you should be made aware of it."

"What is it?"

"A body."

"One of the inhabitants of this place?" An alien corpse, now, that would be a start.

"No. I am transmitting coordinates to your transporter room, you should see this for yourself. Vice Admiral Grau should also be informed."

"She's with me now. What is this?"

"It is best if you see for yourselves."

---

The transport is disorienting. Normally, it is the sudden change in scene which confuses people - this time, though, the confusion comes because our destination looks so much the same. Another irregular room, another wall covered with shifting glyphs -

Only this one has more space-suited shapes inside it - all but one of them dark and anonymous in KDF combat gear. The hulking form that has to stoop beneath the low ceiling, that must be a Gorn science officer - Rrueo's body language is instantly recognizable as she prowls across the floor - and the one standing rigid and wary must be R'j.

The only different one... is lying on the floor.

The space suit is an antique design, the body encased in thick silvery material, the head enclosed in a tall, bulbous, box-like structure. A mid-23rd century Starfleet EV suit... personally, I like that design, it gives room for Andorian antennae, but most species found it inconvenient. The body on the floor appears to be human -

"Clearly, this is the corpse of a Federation citizen," R'j's voice rasps in my ear. "We thought you should see - should determine for yourself that there is no element of foul play on our part."

"He has been dead a long time," Rrueo adds.

The front of the EV suit is split open, in a savage diagonal slash that begins at the right hip and goes almost all the way to the left shoulder. There is dark staining that must once have been blood. A wound like that would have to be instantly fatal, even without the suit breach.... Ronnie kneels by the body.

"I do not know," R'j says, "when the Federation sent an expedition to this star system - or why and how it was lost. I presume it must have been lost, since no record of this structure is found in your data banks. I suppose this person's ship can be identified -"

"Yeah," says Ronnie. "His name was Eusebio Luis Moraes, if that helps any. Assigned to the survey ship USS Erebus last time I saw him."

Everyone turns to her. Even Rrueo leaves off her nervous pacing.

"What?" R'j says.

Ronnie stands up slowly. "First met Seb when I was retraining at the Academy in, hmm, must be 2263," she says. "We kind of lost touch, though... well, this would explain why." I hear her take a deep breath. "OK, so we're in an ancient alien ruin, and we run into a dead body here, and it turns out it's someone I used to know. Does anyone else think that's weird?"