Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [75]
She pulled herself to a sitting position and her head erupted in pain. She steeled herself, waiting for it to abate, and gradually began to assess her situation.
She could see nothing. Wherever she was, it was black as pitch. She reached out and patted the earth in front of her; it was dank and smelled of peat. She extended the range of her patting and quickly encountered a barrier of cold metal. Moving to her right, she followed the wall until it abutted with another at right angles; in this fashion she proceeded until she determined she was in an enclosure approximately a meter and a half square. And less than that tall. She couldn't stand up, could barely sit upright without her head touching the ceiling. And she could only lie down curled into a ball; the pen wouldn't allow her to stretch out. The damp ground had absorbed heat from her body, and cold seemed to have penetrated into her bone marrow. Was she in danger of hypothermia? She began rubbing her legs and arms briskly, trying to warm them up.
What had happened? Her last memory was of being on the Icarus, working with a padd... Justin Tighe was there, cold and intimidating... Wait. The shuttle... Admiral Paris... they were on their way to check a sensor array... and then...
A sudden sound, and an aperture opened in the darkness, flooding the enclosure with bright light that knifed into her eyes like ice picks. She covered them with her hands as a man's voice said, "Please, my dear, come out and join us."
Head down, eyes still shut, she crawled toward the light. She could feel warmth beyond the opening, a welcoming sensation that momentarily lifted her spirits. A strong arm took hers and helped her to her feet, but she couldn't stand; her legs buckled into the fetal position they'd held for so long. She thought of newborn animals, wobbly and unstable, trying to get to their feet. The strong arms held her firmly until her legs were steady, and then she looked up, still squinting in the harsh light, into the face of an alien.
He was of a species she'd never seen. He was quite tall and rather thin; his face and neck were corded with cartilage. It was an imposing presence, but the eyes that peered at her were kind. "I am Gul Camet," he said, and his voice was rich and pleasant. Kathryn began to relax somewhat. "Please accept my apologies for the way you've been treated. I assumed my men had arranged quarters for you, and then I discovered you'd been treated like a common criminal. I assure you they will be reprimanded." The tall man inspected her head wound carefully. "This should be treated at once. Please, come with me."
Grateful, she followed him from the brightly lit courtyard of stone into which she had emerged from her box, down a corridor softly glowing with muted light, and into a somewhat grand chamber with low vaulted ceilings and ornate designs on the walls. A table and two chairs were its only furnishings.
Gul Camet pushed some controls on the table and gestured her to sit. "The physician will be here right away. How are you feeling?"
"I'm... not sure. Cold. My head hurts."
"You may have suffered a mild concussion. The physician will treat you. Do you remember how you were injured?"
Kathryn struggled to piece together the images in her memory. "I was in a shuttle... with the admiral..." Suddenly she remembered Admiral Paris and became alarmed. "Where is he? Where's the admiral?"
"Your companion? I'm afraid he was more seriously injured than you. He is in a hospital facility, but he should recover completely."
Kathryn was staring at him. She had remembered the final moments before the blackout. "You're Cardassian," she said softly. "Yes," smiled Camet, "and you are human. Our species haven't had much interaction. I wish this one hadn't been so unpleasant for you. Why were you on one of our moons?"
Kathryn's head was clearing quickly. The Cardassian ship, the tractor beam, the admiral's final cryptic admonition-they were prisoners, no doubt about it, regardless of what this sleek