Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [8]
Tuvok's team consisted of himself, Kim, Neelix, Kes (at Neelix' request), and twenty Maquis and Starfleet crew. Kim's presence wasn't strictly necessary, but Tuvok believed that away missions were good for the young man. They gave him the experience he needed in disciplining his emotional responses to dangerous and startling situations. Harry always seemed to appreciate the opportunities, though Tuvok suspected it was more to get out into the open air and release some of the natural energy of youth than to practice controlling his emotions.
Tuvok's first order of business was to investigate those suspiciously symmetrical formations; he wanted to make certain there wasn't a population on this planet that had gone undetected for some reason. They had beamed down within a kilometer southeast of the formations, and would proceed cautiously toward them, all the while scanning continuously. The landscape of the planet was not so Earth-like as the prior planet had been (he would not call it by the ridiculous sobriquet Chakotay had chosen for it); the terrain was shot with volcanic rock and the soil was slimy, with a greenish cast to it. The flora was completely unfamiliar. It was Harry who first speculated: "Lieutenant, those formations are constructed. I'd bet on it."
"A wager would have no effect on the outcome of your observation, Ensign. Either they are constructed or they're not." He could never understand the human belief that betting enhanced one's argument. A ridge separated them from their group and the location of the formations, now only forty meters away.
Quietly, cautiously, the team climbed the ridge and crouched on its rim before raising their heads to peer over it. Tuvok gestured to the others to stay down, and he slowly crept forward, lifting his head to peer through thick underbrush at the formation before him.
Even then, he wasn't sure what he was seeing.
A tangle of undergrowth wove in erratic designs over a mound of stone rubble that stretched for nearly half a kilometer in either direction, and that might or might not have once represented a structure. There was a vague order to the rubble, but it was so clumped with weeds and bushes that it was difficult to discern a pattern. One feature, however, identified the mass of stone and brush as having at some time been subject to intelligent hands: a brilliant, cobalt blue spire rose from the center of the mound, gleaming in the sunlight which reflected off its glossy planes. Nothing-not mound, rubble, or spire-gave off any suspicious readings. There was no sign of life. Whatever this mound had once been, whatever the purpose of the radiant blue spire, they functioned no longer. Tuvok motioned for the team to move forward; if the mound was the remnants of a dead civilization, that knowledge should be included in Starfleet's cartographic database.
The team spread out around the mound, tricorders aimed and busily recording data. Kim, in particular, seemed fascinated by this possible archaeological find, and he eagerly took the point of one wing of the team. And it was his cry of discovery Tuvok heard first after he disappeared around a large boulder.
When the others caught up to him, they gasped at the sight: an arrangement of delicate skeletons, which at first glance appeared to be of winged humanoids, was spread in a deep circular indentation in the