Flashback - Diane Carey [5]
Don't kick-please don't kick.
Her weight yanked back and forth against his straining arm. Her fingers were wet and small in his hand.
Then a rare breath of wind came to caress his
wrist and take him by the hand, and his hand was empty.
Peeling away as he watched, the girl's face blanched with pure grisly dread as she fell away from him, growing small against the rocky abyss.
And all he could do was watch her go, clutched by the unkind emotions that thrived upon what had just happened.
His lips hung open, sucking in and gushing out the hot arid atmosphere of Vulcan, but now his teeth began to ache with the fresh chill of starship-controlled oxygen mixture. His clothing clung to his skin as if baked on by the plateau sun.
His hands ached, his shoulder throbbed, his stomach lurched, and gruesome fright chewed at his mind until he no longer could control the reaction of his body and he shuddered viciously.
His hands-his hands-empty.
He staggered forward, and the gush of an en-tranceway whispered in his ears. He fell forward, over the edge of the cliff.
CHAPTER
3
KES REACHED OUT TO TUVOK AS HE STAGGERED INTO
the sickbay entrance, though she was small enough that he nearly knocked her over with his solidly muscular form.
As the ship's medical trainee, she knew nothing was supposed to surprise or shock her-the Doctor had told her over and over about maintaining distance and a certain medical coolness.
But Mr. Tuvok was shuddering with some kind of trauma, and Kes felt the trauma plunge into her own mind.
She was no Vulcan and could not use her mind's power to push away what she saw-a Vulcan boy leaning over her, his face pasty with terror, and she felt the terror fill her own chest and begin to pound and throb. The deck was gone under her feet. Her
tiny slippers dangled pitifully as she kicked and kicked.
Tuvok!
She cried for help. Her voice was so high and thin! A child's voice . . .
One arm stretched out over her head, and he had a grip on that hand, but the grip was growing painful and weaker. He couldn't hold her! He was going to drop her!
She couldn't turn to look, but she somehow knew what lay below-unforgiving thorn bushes and jagged rocks. She'd pricked herself on those thorns before and scratched herself on those rocks. If she fell from this high plateau, the rocks and bushes would shatter her small body.
She was losing composure. A patient had come to her for help, and she was letting a vision take over. She had to help Tuvok-he was collapsing. His breathing was erratic, his heartbeat skipping, his eyes wide with the same terror as Kes saw on the boy's face.
She cramped her eyes closed and forced her semi-telepathic mind to refuse the image. She had never been on Mr. Tuvok's planet, so she couldn't be seeing it in her mind. She couldn't be hanging from a cliff. Something was wrong with Tuvok's telepathy, and it was encroaching on hers.
Please don't let me fall!
The commbadge on her tunic-if she could touch the commbadge, she could summon the holographic medical program, and the Doctor would appear and
help her. Or she could call the captain for help, or Mr. Chakotay . . .
Neelix, help us! I love you, and you'll help me if you can. Come find us here and help Mr. Tuvok. . . please. . .
She raised her trembling hand, not the one that was clinging to the Vulcan boy's hand on the precipice, but the other one. She brought it to her chest and tapped the commbadge.
Something about the small movement within the cuff of reality shook her free of the terrible vision on the plateau's edge. Her eyes cleared as she opened them, and she saw Tuvok before her, on his knees, shuddering with effort and glazed with perspiration.
"Doctor!" she called.
Instantly the emergency medical holographic program popped into physical reality in the form of a studious and approachable man with a clipped, efficient manner, who didn't like unanswered questions.
"Kes! What's wrong with Commander Tuvok?"