Possession - J.M. Dillard [18]
“Thank you, Chief Senat. Any information anyone can give us on this problem can only help us. Live long and prosper.” He returned the Vulcan salute that began their conversation, and the transmission ended.
Skel fought the healing trance. His brain struggled to keep his consciousness submerged so that his muscles and the connective tissue surrounding his skeleton could recover from the terrible force of the energy blast he had absorbed from point-blank range, but the Vulcan could not wait—dared not wait. The urge to run, to flee, was more powerful than his body’s need to recover. Even now another part of his mind gave warning.
BE CAUTIOUS. MOVE SLOWLY. YOUR ENEMY IS NEAR.
His mind tried to lure him back into the healing trance, but he could no longer submit to it. He needed to know where he was, who had taken him, why they had done so, and—most importantly—where they had taken the artifacts.
He opened his eyes the merest slit, so much like the boy who’d peered through the narrow opening in his bedroom doorway that the analogy rattled him. His vision was blurred, too blurred to make sense of the alien setting.
“I see you are back with us again, Master Scientist Skel.” That annoying voice was the one familiar thing in this whole tableau; it was the same grating noise he’d heard just before he’d been rendered unconscious.
Skel blinked as his vision began to clear and slowly turned his aching head in the speaker’s direction, first taking the time to scrutinize his surroundings. This was no doubt the interior of a small space vessel: aging, ill-kept, but in warp drive, judging from the hum vibrating through his body. A Ferengi runabout, Skel judged, given the fact that his calves, ankles, and feet hung off the edge of the uncomfortable rank-smelling cot.
The planetary origin of his abductor was confirmed when his gaze tracked to the left and settled upon a lumpish meter-high figure that coalesced into an adult male Ferengi. A Ferengi, Skel noted with a distant trace of alarm, gripping a phaser. At the sight of his waking captive, the Ferengi growled threateningly and raised the weapon. Skel immediately lowered his gaze.
Never look into their eyes, my child …
But he dared an utterance. “I assume we are no longer on Vulcan.”
“Very logical,” the Ferengi taunted in his grating, nasal voice. The modulations of this species’ language had always irritated Skel’s sensitive hearing—made doubly sensitive now by the effects of a full phaser strike. “Very scientific. And very correct: We are no longer on Vulcan. And you are no longer in control of what may be the most valuable pair of objects in the galaxy.”
The weapon wielder moved away from Skel toward a Ferengi-size console where another, even shorter male stood. Skel blinked, forcing his mind to wake up and perform its job, demanding that his body respond to whatever the brain might order it to do. But he had not had enough time to heal. He gazed at his two captors, realizing that he was quite helpless. At the moment, escape was logically impossible.
“Your research,” the taller Ferengi prodded. “It appears to have been going quite well.”
Skel merely gazed silently at them; the Ferengi took his silence as confirmation and continued.
“You will explain to my brother, Nabon, and myself—Dervin, the DaiMon of this ship—about this forcefield research,” the Ferengi said sternly. “You will explain everything. And then we will be business partners.”
“If you have kidnapped me to learn of my research,” the Vulcan said tiredly, “you have planned poorly indeed. I would have revealed all my pertinent discoveries at the TechnoFair. You had but to come and you would have learned all you wish.”
“But then we would have to share.” The Ferengi spat the word out as if it were the most loathsome concept. “No, Master Scientist, that is not our interest. You will give your research to us alone. We will be partners. Consider