Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [8]
Kirk caught up with Luz as she reached an intersection. Another tube crossed theirs. She listened for a few moments. Kirk wasn’t sure how any sound waves managed to carry in such spongy surroundings. There was nothing for them to bounce off.
But Luz seemed satisfied. She turned right, scuttling away again as Kirk slogged after her.
Luz was pushing on the ceiling when Kirk caught up again. Another round opening grew in the top of the tunnel to nearly a meter wide.
“How did you know where that tube was?” If she was going to keep leaving him behind, he needed to be able to navigate on his own. He didn’t trust any of these Petraw.
Her rapidly blinking eyes and nervous twitching indicated she was about to crack under the strain. “I can see it,” she snapped.
“Be more specific. What is it you see?”
Luz ignored him. She stood up inside the tube, lifting one foot to dig it into the lip. Her toes sank in, giving her a grip. Her legs disappeared up the tube.
Kirk couldn’t see what she was holding on to. So he stood up in the tube, feeling around with his hands. There was nothing but the pliable wall. He figured she was clinging to the polymer the same way he had ambushed her captors.
So he followed her, planting one foot into the tube and pushing until his back braced against the other side. Using that for leverage, he dug the heels of his hands into the wall next to him. It was faster going up than forward.
Luz led him through a long series of tubes, climbing a number of levels and heading deeper into the complex. Kirk was panting from fighting the rubbery walls when she finally turned in to a side tunnel that terminated in a dim cul-de-sac.
“Is there another way out?” Kirk asked.
“Yes,” she said shortly.
Kirk waited, but she didn’t offer anything else. “Listen, we’re in this together, whether you like it or not. I asked you a question, and I expect an answer.”
Luz sullenly gestured to the end of the wall next to her. “This takes us into one of the waste reclamation chambers. Nobody uses this tube because the opening is so high up. But if we have to, we can jump down.”
Satisfied, Kirk sat down next to her, straining to see the wall at the end. It looked no different from everything else. He knew he would have trouble finding his way through the access tubes without Luz. And she was not being cooperative.
Kirk had learned that when all else failed, make friends with your enemy. “Why did you do it, Luz? Why did you take the gateway?”
She glanced over at him. Her face was so different that he kept having to remind himself that he knew this person. If only Dr. McCoy hadn’t stopped him from interrogating her inside the Kalandan station. Luz was obviously unstable. If he had ordered McCoy to stay out of it, he might have cracked her cover. But at the time he had nothing concrete on which to base his doubts. The Petraw were competent con artists, if nothing else.
Luz tried sarcasm to fend him off. “Why would anyone take the gateway? Who wants to transport thousands of light-years in an instant?”
“I wish I could,” Kirk replied. “What I don’t understand is why you betrayed your own people. Surely Tasm was planning on taking the gateway for the Petraw.”
“Tasm!” Luz blurted out, unable to restrain herself. “This is all her fault. She made the wrong decision at every point. I was trying to save the gateway!”
Cannily, Kirk agreed, “You did bring it back to your people.”
“That’s what I told the matriarchs! Tasm is so inept she would have lost it. She was going to try that Klingon ruse herself, to scare you away. It was a inane idea.”
“You used it,” Kirk had to point out. “Yes, to gain time to secure the station. It worked perfectly for that.” Luz looked proud of herself. “But Tasm doesn’t have a shred of originality. She didn’t think of using the gateway to return home. She would have sent it back on an automated drone, making the Petraw wait another generation before we had this technology to use.”
“So you did help your people.” Kirk added, “Now they’ll find out how the gateway technology works.”