Pathways - Jeri Taylor [245]
In the next moment they walked out from under the protective canopy of the trees.
The sound was thunderous now, the chill mist oppressive. And before them, they were able to see the source of the noise and the moisture.
It was an unbelievably massive waterfall.
Chakotay and his group stood on the edge of a precipice; from their left, stretching farther than they could see, a torrential river several thousand meters wide swept to the head of the falls, which wasn’t half a kilometer from them.
Then it plunged over a steep drop, down, down an impossibly long way until it disappeared in billowing mists of vapor which churned with the force of the gigantic fall. They couldn’t see the bottom, or guess how far down it was.
None of them had ever seen such an immense display of water power. The volume of water that cascaded over the cliff and plunged downward was incalculable, the force that it generated immeasurable. It was an awesome phenomenon of nature, which the scientists of the group would ordinarily have wanted to study.
But tonight they viewed it with dismay.
“Commander—what now?” asked Tom, trying not to sound worried.
Chakotay didn’t answer, just stared at the Promethean falls, mind searching for the answer. He turned, and saw the lights of the vehicles drawing nearer; they had indeed been spotted.
And suddenly hovercraft appeared overhead, lights sweeping the area in circles, within seconds of discovering them as well.
Chakotay’s vision blurred and everything before him swirled into hallucinogenic images: waterfall, clouds of vapor, thick forests, arcing beams of light, the hushed, expectant faces of his crew, all blended into kaleidoscopic fragments. What was he to do? How could he get them out of this awful predicament? What had the captain intended—or was she behind this strange escape at all?
He was seized with the memory of himself as a young person, running through the woods like a deer, heart pounding, feeling like an unencumbered animal dashing headlong, at one with nature. He tried to concentrate on that memory, to strip from himself all rationality, all logic, for something was telling him strongly that only his instincts could be relied on now, only his connection with the primeval being he carried deep inside. Father, he thought. Help me.
And in his mind he heard his father’s voice, saying, Trust yourself. You know what to do.
With that, the sensation of falling returned to him, even as it had the night the captain planted the Borg nodule in his cheek. But this time it held no terrors.
He opened his eyes, certain of their course.
The Subu vehicles were audible now, pushing through the forest, and the hovercraft were descending. There was no time to hesitate.
“We’re going to jump,” he said firmly. “Join hands. Here we go.”
To the credit of the crew, there was no objection, no reluctance. He supposed they realized if the Subu reached them they’d be dead anyway. And maybe this mad leap was at least the more defiant way to go.
They joined hands, Harry still clinging to Tuvok’s back, and as one, leapt off the precipice and began to fall.
Chakotay lived a lifetime during their fall.
He nuzzled at his mother’s breast, fat and content, tugging at the nipple long past satiety, basking in comfort and succor . . . breezes blew his hair in his eyes as he stood on the hilltops near his home, carrying the desperate aroma of spring flowers . . . he felt the sweet urgency of first love searing his body, a black-haired girl ripe as a peach . . . gathering the artifacts for his medicine bundle . . . needles piercing the skin of his temple as the indigenous people of Central America etched the ritual tattoo into his forehead, his final tribute to his father . . . a woman’s voice, singing in the twilight . . . he felt love, pain, longing, aspiration . . . all the myriad emotions that had driven him since infancy swirled around him, coalescing into ribboned patterns of light, colorful serpents that twisted through, around, over him, objects now