Surak's Soul - J.M. Dillard [17]
“O-ah-nee.”
That accomplished, Hoshi entered her rough translation into the computer, then recorded it onto tape so that she could play it back for the others.
“We are the Oani. A warning to visitors: we suffer from an unknown disease. Please protect yourselves. If you can offer assistance, contact us and we will transmit medical data.”
Again, it was rough; Hoshi knew nothing about the culture save what she had seen on the planet’s surface, so she had no idea whether the warning held any subtext or unspoken assumptions. Her feeling—a perfectly nonscientific hunch—was that the warning was as straightforward as it appeared, and that the Oani were indeed concerned enough about outsiders to warn them to stay clear of the planet.
But had they ever discovered what had killed them?
Hoshi removed the disk of the warning and put in the first tape they’d discovered in the medical facility, in the room where Dr. Phlox had struggled unsuccessfully to keep the woman alive. Hoshi knew it was her job to study the tape—but she felt an enormous reluctance to face the image of the man who had died with an expression of such hatred, such fury on his features.
But the instant his living image appeared on her viewer, Hoshi was mesmerized, all discomfort forgotten. Here was the living man, his expression alert, keen with concern, his lashless dark eyes round and so luminous that Hoshi found them attractive, even by human standards. The first entry he made was terse, too brief for her to make much of; she replayed it again and again until it began to make sense in context of all she’d heard before.
Uroqa: that was his name, and he gave what was probably a date and time. Hoshi fast-forwarded and confirmed the repetition of the name and the date/time, which varied just enough. These were precisely what Dr. Phlox and Captain Archer had hoped, medical log entries, and she sat entranced, listening to Uroqa’s deep bass—deeper tones than a human was capable of producing. Given the urgency of his tone, these logs probably commenced at some point after the medical crisis had already begun.
This time, Hoshi played the first entry at normal speed, listening carefully. She began to pick out certain words—medical, disease—enough times to convince her she had the proper translation. It always amazed her, no matter how many times she began to interpret a new language, how effortlessly and swiftly her brain put the pieces of the linguistic puzzle together; as a child, she had taken her ability for granted, and assumed that everyone could read backward and upside down, and made up their own secret alphabets for sending coded messages to friends in school. Early on, Starfleet Intelligence had made efforts to recruit her, but she had no interest in politics or espionage. Languages were for learning about new cultures, for making new friends.
She watched as Uroqa made his swift, tense report—and then he glanced up as another person entered the room.
Hoshi let out a small gasp of recognition: it was the female who had been alive when the landing party had found her—alive, beneath Uroqa’s body. She said his name—with alien intonation, to be sure, but Hoshi heard the tenderness in her voice, saw the sudden brightness in Uroqa’s eyes when he glanced up and saw her there.
“Kano,” he said, and spoke to her softly, his tone now one of gentle reproach. Hoshi did not know the meaning of each word, but she understood him all too well: You should not be here, in the midst of all this danger.
Hoshi’s throat tightened suddenly; she realized she was in danger of weeping and blinked rapidly, determined to remain the scientist. Now was not the time to be moved.
She had permitted Captain Archer to talk her into signing aboard Enterprise very quickly; it had all been very exciting, the promise of travel and the chance to meet aliens from other cultures, and learn their languages. But it had never occurred to her that they would encounter such a horrific