Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [15]
“I am to tell you not to open it except within a medical sterifield,” Zetha said now, in the careful singsong she adapted when reciting the words Cretak had taught her. “It contains biomedical material from those who have died, which may still be highly contagious.”
The locket was beautiful, almost as big as the palm of Uhura’s hand, but the touch of the cold metal coupled with Zetha’s words about contagion made her hand tingle, and she had to suppress an urge to fling the object into the bushes as if it were a scorpion. She waited for common sense to overcome fear, then enfolded the locket in her fingers, her mind racing.
Operational triage: What to do first. Get this to Medical at once. Entrust it to Dr. Crusher, with instructions. Attempt to verify everything she’d just heard by contacting her Listeners on the other side. And then—
And then figure out what she was going to do with Pandora’s box now that she’d delivered her message that there are evils loose between the stars, and the head of Starfleet Intelligence must attempt to stop them. Uhura took a deep breath and steadied herself.
“Are you hungry?” she asked Zetha.
Ravenous would have been a better word. Uhura and Lieutenant Tuvok watched from behind the mirror wall as Zetha polished off a meal that would have done a longshoreman proud, then went back to the replicator for seconds.
“What do you make of her, Mr. Tuvok?” Uhura asked quietly, always interested in the Vulcan perspective. Early in his Starfleet career, Tuvok had done some undercover work for Intelligence, and Uhura was familiar with his credentials. He had also come to her with Hikaru Sulu’s highest recommendation, and that was worth its weight in latinum. Examining his record since his return to Starfleet, Uhura could see that even his long leave of absence to pursue Kolinahr had not dulled his skills or tarnished his loyalty. He would be a strong asset for her team.
Tuvok canted his head slightly as Vulcans did when they were studying something, his usual seriousness deepening into a slight frown.
“Female vulcanoid, age approximately twenty Earth years. Height approximately 1.6 meters, weight approximately forty-eight kilos. Color of eyes, green, color of hair, dark brown, distinguishing marks, none apparent…”
Was it only Uhura’s imagination that as Tuvok spoke, the young woman stopped shoveling food in with both hands and raised her head imperceptibly, as if she sensed another, and nonhuman, presence? There was no question she had known at once that the mirror wasn’t just a mirror, and that she was being observed from the other side. But did she also sense by whom? No, Uhura thought. That much I’m imagining.
“Freckles,” she said when Tuvok was done, watching Zetha finish her second helping and, with a sleight of hand almost too quick to see, secrete an apple and two uneaten spring rolls in a pocket of her travel cloak against future contingencies, conditioning, perhaps, from not always knowing where her next meal was coming from. “Surely you noticed the freckles. And she’s built like a Balanchine dancer.”
She could see Tuvok searching his memory for the reference and coming up blank. Vulcans, she knew, hated to admit they didn’t know something.
“I am not familiar with the reference,” he said at last, grudgingly.
“Nor should you be, Lieutenant. George Balanchine was a ballet master on Earth a few centuries ago. He believed the perfect female body for the dance was one that was exactly the height and weight you described, but with legs proportionately longer than the torso. Balanchine would have adored this one.”
“Indeed.”
“But you said ‘vulcanoid,’ not Romulan.”
“Is she Romulan, Admiral?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Uncertain merely on appearance.