The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [86]
“Almost?”
“In one of my last visions I saw the next step in its journey; not the end of its quest, but possibly the end of its dealings with our affairs.”
“Tell me, T’Sara!” he pleaded with an urgency that saddened her.
She pointed to the wizened body of the Collector, who crouched above them.
“Halaylah learned the ways of the stone better than anyone, but when she saw that same vision, she walled herself up alive rather than let the Ko N’ya fulfill its destiny.”
“I am not the Collector; I wish to find a way to continue what you—” “No!” she cried out. Her waning strength was not sufficient to suppress her anguish. “Do not lay the burden of your actions on me. I have too much to answer for already.”
“”I will not give it to any living being,”” he recited slowly. “I remember, those were your words.”
“And Surak’s. As a child he was far wiser than I could ever hope to be. He released the stone before it could tempt him beyond the limits of self-control; I thought I could do the same, but I waited too long. You have waited too long as well.”
The man shook his head as if angered by what he heard. “It is not evil, T’Sara.”
“No, not evil. Just dangerous.” There was not much time left to her, she realized. On the other side of this dream, death was waiting. “The Ko N’ya is not of our world; its powers were meant for other purposes. It constantly struggles to free itself from the tangle of our grasping hands.”
Overcome by weakness, her head fell back against the wall. Must the knot untie so soon?
“No, T’Sara!” he cried. “I need to know where!”
She extended an arm up toward his head, her fingers searching for the contact points on his temple.
The man stiffened but did not resist her; he had mind-melded before.
She reached inward.
When their thoughts were one, she showed him the place the constellation of stars and the speeding messenger that waited for the Ko N’ya.
There!
Her arm dropped down, breaking the link. The fingers of her hand flexed, then clenched like steel clamps around the cloth of his shirt. With the last of her strength, she pulled him so close he could feel her dry breath on his face as she whispered, “Remember this about the Ko N’ya … the blood never stops flowing.”
Picard stumbled out of the shadows of the Collector’s chamber into the ruined plaza surrounding the fallen tower.
Staring up into the night sky, he tried to make sense of the stars. They were all wrong, and it was so very important that they be right. He reached out his hands to move them into their proper positions, to arrange them according to the image T’Sara had revealed to him …
… but his fingers hit against the transparent barrier of an angled ceiling window.
He was standing in the middle of his cabin.
Despite this abrupt awakening, his sense of urgency remained somehow he must fix the stars in their place. Stepping over to his desk, Picard snatched up a data padd and stylus and began to sketch a series of small circles. Even as the meaning of what he drew faded out of his understanding, he fought to preserve the image that lingered in his mind’s eye.
His hand finally stopped, but he knew he was not quite finished. There was still something missing, an element that had given this scene a distinctive configuration.
Not another star …
… a comet.
He drew a flurry of lines to mark the comet’s streaming tail, and the sketch was complete.
With the padd gripped tightly in one hand, Picard walked back to the threshold of his bedroom. If the Heart had come to life during the night, he had missed its shimmering display. He could barely make out its rounded silhouette on a low table by his bed.
Picard whispered into the shadows, “If I am to take you to this place, I must know why.”
CHAPTER 24
The bridge was always quiet during the night shift.
Too quiet, as far as Riker was concerned.
Although a full crew complement was posted at all the duty stations, the men and women talked in low voices and went about their work with a more