Pathways - Jeri Taylor [243]
The guard stretched out a tentacle. “Give me that,” he rasped, but Coris shook her head.
“It’s mine.”
“Is that the machine which turns ore to dust?”
So they did know what had happened. Coris felt her heart quicken with urgency, but her voice was clear and strong in the night air, now unnaturally hushed as the prisoners waited to see what the guards would do.
“No,” said Coris, “it’s a machine which will insure that you never father children.”
There was an astonished gasp from the onlookers, and a heavy moment passed, charged as though in the instant before lightning strikes. Then Coris saw the guard’s tentacle snake out and rip the transtator from her grasp, then pass it to one of his fellows.
Then the tentacle came whipping back for her.
Her voice, when it began screaming, seemed disembodied, a high keening that came from somewhere far away. She’d been wrong; this pain was worse, far worse, than anything she’d ever experienced. By the time blackness came, she’d forgotten her purpose, her quest for nobility, even who she was and why she was here, writhing in this crucible.
Chakotay and B’Elanna were the last to go. When the screams began, he had run to the opening of the shelter and saw Coris twisting in the deadly embrace of the Subu guard. There was nothing he could do for her now. He moved back to B’Elanna and signaled her with a nod.
He was beamed to the underground chamber thinking of Coris, whose sacrifice had undoubtedly bought them the time they needed to complete the transports.
When he materialized, it was in front of a Harry Kim who looked as though he was about to pass out.
“Where’s Coris?” Harry gasped, obviously in pain.
“She decided not to come,” lied Chakotay. “She was afraid.”
Harry was baffled but Chakotay didn’t want to get into it now. “Beam me out of here, Harry. B’Elanna still has to come down.”
Harry responded as though by reflex. Chakotay knew he was in a bad way, but didn’t yet know why, and for now it didn’t matter; what mattered was to get all of them outside the camp and into the forest.
Seconds later, he was standing among the rest of the crew, deep within the forest which, at night, was cold and damp. Not long after, B’Elanna shimmered into view before them, and finally, Harry Kim, who collapsed as soon as he materialized.
“What is it, Harry?” said Chakotay, who hurried to his side. Harry rolled over to look up at him with eyes that were black against his pale face.
“Foot . . . crushed . . .”
Chakotay looked down to see the boot on Harry’s right foot soaked in blood, the shape of the boot twisted unnaturally.
“Can’t walk . . . leave me here . . .”
“Forget it.” Chakotay nodded toward Tuvok and Tom, who hauled Harry up, ready to hoist him onto Tuvok’s back. The Vulcan’s strength would come in handy tonight.
“Which way, Commander?” asked Tuvok, and then Chakotay remembered that he was expected to guide them in the right direction.
But he felt nothing. No urge, no impulse, nothing that gave him any clue how to proceed from here. But they couldn’t just stand here; their absence would be discovered soon and the chase—if there was to be one—would be on.
He turned to Seven. “It’s not working. I don’t feel what I did before.”
She moved to him and stared solemnly at the implant on his cheek. She reached up and touched it gently. “This may cause you momentary pain,” she announced, and then she drove the heel of her palm directly into the nodule on his cheek.
Chakotay felt as though his head had exploded. A jagged knife was ripping through his jaw, driving into his brain. The forest began to spin and he staggered, put his head down to get blood to it, then back up as the increase in pressure exacerbated the pain.
Gradually, it abated, and he breathed deeply. The air was cold and sweet, and helped clear the residual pain.
And as it did, he felt the unmistakable impulse to move from this place. There was something, an indefinable but potent something, pulling at him.
“This way,” he said to the others, and began to plunge with unerring instinct through the forest.
Coris felt herself