Broken Bow - Diane Carey [38]
“Where on level nineteen?” the captain asked.
“The easternmost subsection. By the geothermal shafts.”
“I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Archer out.”
The alien child was hysterical now. Tucker’s innards squirmed as the mother disconnected the breathing tube entirely. The child was suffocating!
Tucker bolted forward. “What are you doing! Leave that kid alone!”
T’Pol was right after him and seized him by the arm. “Don’t get involved.”
“Do you see what she’s doing? He’s going to suffocate!”
“They’re Lorillians. Before the age of four, they can only breathe methyloxide.” She paused, watching the mother and child as the little one began finally to grow quiet and begin breathing on his own, without the device. “The mother is simply weaning her son.”
Tucker inhaled deeply in empathy. “Could’ve fooled me. ...”
“Humans can’t refrain from drawing conclusions,” T’Pol scolded. “You should learn to objectify other cultures so you can determine when to interfere and when not to.”
Tucker glanced back at the child. He knew he’d made a mistake, but that was all it was. He didn’t like being lectured.
He followed her into the open stretch of walkways and tubes leading toward the upper levels. “Well, hey, Sub-Commander,” he told her, “next time I see somebody backing you into a corner and taking a switchblade to your ribs, I’ll know to wait a few minutes just in case it’s a dance. Do you feel like somebody’s following us? I feel like we’re being watched. Do you get that feeling? I do. ...”
“Do you think they’re all right?”
“No way to know yet.”
“They don’t like each other.”
“I don’t think T’Pol would let anything happen to Tucker, no matter how they feel about each other.”
Archer led Hoshi through a forbidding trade complex much more desolate and eerie than the central cluster. Deep grinding noises from the power generators far below echoed through damp floors that creaked under their feet. He kept Hoshi close behind him as they skimmed past rows of burping geothermic ducts that constantly vented violent shots of steam.
And they were completely alone.
“Isn’t an ‘enclave’ supposed to have people?” Hoshi nervously asked.
“ ‘Enclave’ can mean a lot of things,” Archer comforted, but he kept his eyes open. The place looked empty, but that also could mean a lot of things.
“T’Pol said something about ‘live’ food,” Hoshi went on, quite spooked. “I don’t see any restaurants. ...”
Archer started to answer, but drew up short instead as a flicker of movement caught his eye in the industrial distance. Klingons!
“Excuse me!” he shouted. “Hello! Excuse me!”
The Klingons moved away from them.
“Hoshi!” he snapped.
She flinched, then shouted, “Ha’quj jeg!”
But there was only silence. The movement stopped. The shadows sagged back to stillness.
“They looked Klingon to me,” she said, suddenly breathless and completely jittery.
Archer grunted a dissatisfied response and snapped up his communicator. “Archer to T’Pol.” After a moment, when no answer came, he repeated, “T’Pol, come in.”
Anxiety rose as no answer came. Hoshi shivered at his side. “Maybe we should get back to where there are more people. ...”
“There are plenty of people right here.”
He drew his plasma pistol. The movement frightened her.
“Stay behind me,” he warned.
They moved into the deep purpose shadows along the path leading to where the Klingons had disappeared. Above, a spiderweb of age-old metal drums, bridges, archways, and tubes threaded the darkness. Steam billowed from the geothermal ducts, obscuring every step before they took it.
There was someone here. He felt the shifting gazes of the shadows and pounding machinery. Silence would be better than this constant grinding and drumming.
They passed too close to a geothermal duct just as it blew its top. A mushroom of gray-white steam burped from the depths and separated Archer from Hoshi for a critical instant.
He glanced behind, but she was lost in steam.
A piece of a shadow burst toward him—Hoshi’s hand flashed in the cloud and she screamed, only steps