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By Root 531 0

by Phlox. In the open hatch of the shuttle-sized ship, a male had fallen backward, so that his torso lay faceup on the stone-and-shale landing strip, his legs on the deck of his vessel. Clearly, he’d been stricken as he attempted to leave…fleeing, perhaps, whatever had decimated his people. His complexion was deep bronze, his scalp and ridged brow were entirely hairless; the cartilage of his nose terminated in a sharp, triangular tip, framed by large diagonal slits for nostrils. He stared up at the cloudless sky with almost perfectly round, dark eyes, dulled by death. His expression was entirely neutral, his lipless mouth open to reveal a hard dental ridge mostly covered by pale gums. The hands that fell so limply from his flailed arms were slightly webbed, suggesting that his people had evolved from the sea that covered most of their planet. His clearly muscular body was draped in a soft white, semi-sheer toga with full, winglike arms that made Archer think of the snow angels he’d made as a child.

Whatever had taken his life, Archer decided, had not inspired fear in him, even if he was running away. He got the impression that the man had sagged gently to the ground, as if he had simply no longer been able to hold himself erect.

Phlox crouched over the body and scanned it briefly. He glanced up at Archer and said softly, sadly, “Already dead, I fear. Very recently.”

Archer gave a single regretful nod.

The doctor studied his readouts, then gently touched the dead humanoid, examining the eyes, nose, mouth, and torso. “I’m not detecting anything microbial in his system….” He looked up at Archer, his features furrowed with puzzlement. “In fact, I can’t really tell you what he died of. My first guess is that these readings are normal for him…but it would help if I had a healthy member of his race for comparison.”

Reed drew his phase pistol and disappeared into the ship for several seconds, then emerged again, his expression one of awe. “No other bodies, sir. But these people are definitely capable of spaceflight. I know Commander Tucker would love to take one of these apart—we could learn a thing or two….”

“Later, Lieutenant,” Archer answered shortly.

“Captain,” T’Pol said quietly. Archer took a step toward her and glanced over her shoulder at her scanner. “Chances of finding such a being are becoming slimmer. Since we have left Enterprise, many more life-forms have died. I’m now reading only eleven on this island. The signals are growing increasingly faint.”

“Let’s move,” Archer said again, gazing down at the dead man, feeling oddly reluctant to leave him without some acknowledgment, some rite to mark his passage. But as the captain turned to face the alien city, he realized the necessity for speed—else they would be needing a memorial to mark the passage of an entire civilization.

As the quintet strode quickly over a shale-and-sand street toward the building T’Pol indicated, they were met by grisly sights: pedestrians fallen as they walked, in different stages of decomposition under the bright sun. Airborne vehicles carrying single passengers, sometimes pairs, had dropped from the sky, leaving mangled wreckage and toga-draped corpses—some on the ground, others caught in the swaying trees, or on shrubs, or lying atop a bier of brightly colored flowers. At one point, they passed a body being attended to by a carrion bird; Hoshi briefly closed her eyes, but moved stalwartly onward. Once again, Archer got the impression that the victims had surrendered easily and unexpectedly to death, in the midst of going about their lives.

He was finally glad for the awkward suit, with its self-contained atmosphere; the smell of decay must have been overwhelming. He thought of Earth’s past plagues, and the terror that must have been felt by the survivors. During the Black Plague in medieval Europe, there had been so many dead, the living could not bury them all; a similar thing had happened during the plagues that swept mankind after the third World War. And it had happened to these poor people, in the midst of their beautiful paradise.