Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [28]
At the end of the corridor, he turned left again and came to a set of doors. They opened at his approach, revealing a large room that had once been the cruiser’s armory.
Its walls were covered with rows of disruptor weapons, short-barreled pistols as well as vicious-looking rifles. Once, it seemed to Nikolas, the Ubarrak must have enjoyed easy access to all the ordnance they kept there.
But that was before Brakmaktin had transformed the place into a fully realized cavern full of mineral pillars, not unlike the ones Nikolas had encountered on the Iktoj’ni. But far from taking the alien days to create, it had taken him less than a dozen hours. Clearly, he was getting more practiced at it.
As for Brakmaktin himself, he was floating in the center of the room a good half meter above the deck—eyes closed, feet together, massive arms extended sideways.
But he looked different from the last time Nikolas had seen him. His fringe of lank dark hair had turned silver, almost as silver as his eyes.
“Levitation,” said the alien, as if to no one in particular, “is a simple matter once you understand the workings of gravity. As simple as shaping a lesser being’s thoughts.”
Nikolas frowned. Which explains why I never ran into him.
Abruptly, Brakmaktin turned his eyes on the human. “I’ve made changes,” he noted.
“Yes,” the human said drily. “I can see that.”
Brakmaktin glared at him, clearly not pleased with the sarcasm. Then, by degrees, his expression softened.
“In any case,” he said, “it is only a temporary measure. When we reach our destination, I will create something more complete. More satisfying.”
Nikolas couldn’t imagine what the alien would do when he reached the Ubarrak world. He didn’t want to imagine it. It was bound to be horrific, worse than anything he had seen so far.
He couldn’t let it happen. He had to stop it—if not by bringing the ship about, then by bringing Brakmaktin about.
“You don’t want to go where we’re headed,” Nikolas said.
“But I do,” the alien told him offhandedly.
“You can’t,” said Nikolas. His mind raced to come up with a reason. “Its atmosphere’s been poisoned…by experimentation with biogenic weapons.”
Brakmaktin looked at him, his head tilted to the side. “There was no mention of that in your vessel’s database. Or the database in this vessel, either.”
He checked the databases? He’s more thorough than I thought. “It happened recently,” Nikolas said.
The alien continued to stare at him for a moment. Then he said, “You’re lying.”
And before Nikolas knew it, he was flying backward across the room, headed for the bulkhead behind him.
Don’t tense up, he told himself.
And he didn’t. But it still sent shoots of pain through his bones when he smashed into the mineral-encrusted bulkhead, and again when he plummeted to the metal deck.
Tasting blood, Nikolas looked up at Brakmaktin. The alien was still eyeing him from the center of the room, his eyes glowing with a fierce silver light.
Brakmaktin had the power to kill him with a gesture. Both Nikolas and his tormentor knew that. And for a moment, Nikolas thought that Brakmaktin would do it.
Then the alien turned away, as if Nikolas no longer interested him. The human breathed a sigh of relief.
But he didn’t understand Brakmaktin’s restraint. Why had he kept Nikolas around in the first place? Why was he continuing to keep him around?
Did he think that Nikolas had something he needed—some hard-to-get information about Ubarrak space, maybe? Or did the alien just want some company as he moved to meet his objective, whatever that might be?
Clearly, Brakmaktin could read Nikolas’s thoughts. But if he had “heard” the question in the human’s mind, he didn’t seem the least bit inclined to answer it. He just hung there in defiance of the ship’s artificial gravity…
And everything else in the universe.
Chapter Seven
PICARD MATERIALIZED in a centrally located corridor of the cargo hauler along with Joseph, Pierzynski, Pfeffer, and Iulus, all five of them wearing Starfleet environmental