Surak's Soul - J.M. Dillard [39]
His intonation was irregular—not, Hoshi noted, the same he used when he was speaking to Kano, or making a log entry, but the one he used when he murmured something to himself. Someone had just entered, but for some reason Uroqa did not speak directly to them.
And then, not as visible on his deep bronze features, but clearly visible on his stark white tunic, shone a blue-green glow: oceanic, roiling, like the rippling of a strong current. It neared Uroqa; closer and closer it came, until in its deep turquoise light he let go a gasp so deep it seemed all the air had been forced from his lungs.
You, he hissed, with such venom, such fury and bitterness, that even Hoshi recoiled, and he rose up from his chair—staggering, struggling against a sudden weakness. There came the sounds of his uneven footfall as he used the last of his strength to go to his wife’s side….
Then there was nothing but pale walls tinted with the sea-blue glow.
Seething, body taut, Hoshi punched the control on the nearest companel, and turned, ready to make the accusation.
Wanderer was, of course, still gone.
But in its place at the computer console, Kano—Uroqa’s dead mate—stood, her white tunic draped about her erect, stiff body like a shroud. Her dulled eyes were open, but unfocused, and her arms stretched out over the keyboard while her fingers punched the controls with the preternatural speed and grace of a pianist-prodigy.
Dear God, this isn’t happening, Hoshi tried to say, but her tongue, her lips were frozen with disbelief and horror. Somehow, her limbs still worked, and she took a step toward the impossible.
Kano lifted her fingers and paused, head tilting, sensing an intruder’s approach.
At once, the Oani woman dropped to the floor with the dreadful limpness of death, all animation fled from her corpse, white gauze draping over her bronze skin and fluttering out onto the deck about her.
In her place at the console, Wanderer, a neatly condensed column of energy, remained.
Hoshi recoiled. But the weakness—one so draining, so powerfully intense it verged on anguish and made her long for an end, for death—overtook her so swiftly so that she could manage only one whispered word as her eyesight dimmed, replaced by an all-enveloping blue-green glow:
“You…”
Seven
“You…”
The word woke Archer from a deep, dreamless sleep. For a few seconds he stared, dazed and disoriented, face still crushed against his pillow, at the companel where the sound had originated.
He blinked. Beside him, curled in a horseshoe shape, Porthos snored, having ignored the rule—most definitely spoken—that he was to spend all nights in his own bed.
Archer pushed himself up on one elbow and cleared his throat; a glance at the chronometer confirmed he’d gotten less than two hours’ sleep, which explained the mental fuzziness. He fought to shake it off, to replay the single word in his mind to try to determine who had uttered it.
“Archer here,” he croaked, and cleared his throat again. On the next try, his voice sounded more like his own. “Hoshi?”
Silence, but Archer’s hearing was sharp. The channel was still open.
“Hoshi, come in.”
Still no response. Archer sat, then stood, all the while feeling an increasing sense of alarm. “Ensign Sato, report.”
At this point, he did not expect a reply. He cut off the channel himself, and instead opened one to sickbay.
“Cutler here.” She sounded wearier than Archer felt.
“Ensign, send someone down to Hoshi Sato’s lab at once. She tried to contact me, but I’m not able to raise her now. I’m concerned…”
“I’ll get someone down there right away, sir.” She paused. “We’ve got some strange problems down here, Captain.”
“Strange?”
“An Oani corpse has disappeared, sir.”
“What?”
“That was my reaction, too, Captain. It’s not like we misplaced it—sickbay’s too small for that. It was in its stasis container when Lieutenant Reed collapsed, sir, and now, it’s…gone.”
“Ensign, we can’t have any breach of containment like that. That’s inexcusable.”
“Yes, sir.”
He could practically hear Cutler flush with embarrassment