The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [101]
“Save your pity for yourself. I have fulfilled my life’s quest, whereas you have just begun yours.”
“What was your quest?”
The DiWahn was still staring into space with a rapt expression. “Like you, I spent my childhood among the races of the Federation. I have never even set foot on my homeworld, but my father showed me the path of the Faithful. My sworn duty was to follow after T’Sara.”
“You know T’Sara?” cried Jiak. Hearing her name was like meeting a friend in an unfamiliar place. “Please, tell me about her.”
The DiWahn was too absorbed in his own memories to attend to the interruption. “My only regret is that I could not return home in time to join the armada. In order to elude capture by unbelievers, I bought forged papers listing me as a Dynasian. That choice was my undoing.”
He shrugged his resignation. “Imprisonment is a small price to pay for recovering the Gem.”
“The Gem?” Jiak’s eyes widened at the mention of the powerful icon. “You mean the Dream Gem is not just a legend?”
The DiWahn hesitated, his reply forestalled by the distant sound of doors parting, followed by the tread of boots echoing down the corridor.
“No, not a myth, Kanda Jiak, Gem-Bearer,” he whispered. “See for yourself.
Join our order and hear the Telling.”
“But how can I find—” “Ask a woman named Camenae on Starbase 193. If you’re willing to meet her price, she will answer all your questions. Find the Gem, and you will find the Faithful.”
The footsteps stopped outside the cell.
“Hey, I don’t have all day,” said a voice edged with irritation.
Jiak looked up to see that the force field had been deactivated. The guard standing by the entrance was holding his backpack in her hands.
She beckoned him with a jerk of her head. “The Federation consulate has confirmed your residency on Redifer III. You’re permitted to leave the Junction so long as you stay away from Dynasia.”
“Go!” urged the DiWahn softly.
Jiak scrambled to his feet, his mind still reeling from the man’s revelations.
Thousands of years ago, the Dream Gem had opened the Three Gates that saved the Iconian people from annihilation. If the first Kanda Jiak had walked through the Gate to Ikkabar, the powers of his Gem could have tamed the planet. Without his assistance, the third branch of the Iconian race had withered away.
However, if Kanda Jiak’s namesake gained possession of the Gem, perhaps that tragic history could be revised.
Grabbing his pack from the guard, the last survivor of Ikkabar raced down the corridor. He was headed toward freedom and a new destination.
CHAPTER 27
Main engineering was rarely quiet. Most often the rumble that permeated the area came from the steady pulse of the matterstantimatter reaction chamber. Today, however, the warp propulsion system was shut down and the ship’s engines were cold; instead, the noisy bustle of Humans filled the air as a constant stream of engineering personnel moved from one work station to another, then dashed away.
Yet there was an island of stability in this whirlwind of motion. The master situation monitor covered most of the forward wall section in engineering, and for the past five hours Geordi La Forge had returned again and again to the cutaway schematic of the Enterprise that was on display. When he had first assessed the damage to the starship, broad sections of the diagram had been highlighted in red. Now, as the chief engineer continued to track the progress of repairs, yet another of the system indicators blinked from red to green.
After checking the value of a number on the board, Geordi turned to face the ship’s first officer. “Well, the good news is that the deflector shields are working again.”
“So what’s the bad news?” asked Riker dutifully.
“They’re only at about forty-six percent efficiency, and they’re going to stay at that level until we replace at least five conformal transmission grids on the primary hull and then realign the entire array.”
“Let’s do it.”
With a warning shake of his head, Geordi said, “Yeah,