The Garden - Melissa Scott [94]
"The gas-pollen," Torres corrected herself. "And the pods and all the rest." And I was right about them, she added silently, though the thought wasn't as satisfying as it might have been under other circumstances.
"Just so." They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and stood in a narrow blue-walled well. Torres glanced back the way they'd came but could see no sign of the door. The transporter sounded again, and she followed Silver-Hammer through the arch into another, narrower corridor.
"The gardeners, too?" Torres asked, and Silver-Hammer gave her a sharp, almost startled glance.
"No, not them."
A door opened in the wall ahead of them-a real door, Torres thought, amazed by the sight, the first real door she'd seen since she entered the citadel. She closed her mouth, and stepped into what was obviously the Kirse command chamber. Massive view-screens filled each of the eight walls, filling the air with a flicker of confused and contrasting shadows, and, looking back, Torres saw the door slide closed to become once again part of its image. Silver-Hammer had not followed, and she was startled by the depth of her disappointment. An octagonal console-no, she thought, it was bigger than a console, more like a kiosk, with its raised sides and the transparent umbrella that formed a domed roof-filled the center of the room, and Adamant stood in its center, long hands splayed on the control boards. Multicolored light played in the dome above his head, and now and then he glanced up at it, but Torres couldn't recognize any of the patterns. The rest of the away team, Tuvok, his lieutenant Karlock and the two technicians Quar-ante and Jenar, were standing in a tight knot at the nearest corner of the octagon, and Tuvok nodded to the engineer.
"Lieutenant Torres. We are now all accounted for."
"Yes," Torres answered vaguely, her eyes riveted on the screen behind him. In it, an ungainly shape, angular and graceless and brown as old iron, moved slowly toward the image source, forcefields distorting the air around it as they held the ugly craft ten meters or so above the surface of the golden road. To either side, trees bent and tossed as though caught in a hurricane, and the air outside the supporting force-fields was hazed with pollen or dust. Or smoke, she added, seeing something hit the forcefield with a puff
of flame, but whatever it was, it didn't seem to have much effect on the oncoming craft.
"The Andirrim shuttle?" she asked, softly, and Karlock nodded.
"The automatic defenses don't seem to be working," he answered, as softly, but broke off at a reproving look from Tuvok.
"There is still the river."
Even as he spoke, the shuttle reached one of the aqueduct bridges-if it isn 't the one we crossed, Torres thought, it's virtually identical. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adamant's hands convulse on some control, and water rose abruptly from the riverbed, forming itself into an impossible tidal wave. The shuttle reeled sideways, but its pilot seemed to have been expecting the attack, and turned it into a controlled roll that brought the shuttle up and out of the onslaught. The wave crashed onto the bridge, momentarily immersing it, and when it passed, there were great gaps in the pavement. The Andirrim shuttle aligned itself with the road, and came on.
Tuvok shook his head, and Torres heard Quarante sigh.
"Impressive flying."
Jenar looked at him warily. "Yeah, but I'd've hated to be inside it."
"Presumably they have internal gravity to prevent injury," Tuvok said. There was something in the Vulcan's tone that silenced further comment, and Torres looked at Adamant. The Kirse was looking up again, reading something from the dome above his head-monitoring the space battle? Torres wondered suddenly. The Andirrim fleet was still in orbit.
"What about Voyager?"