To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [48]
“She went with me to the evening rites and stayed for the storytelling,” Shomia’s mother said, her voice hoarse and strange. “I couldn’t stay. I had the mending waiting for me. I didn’t want her to stay either.
She had a cough these past three days—just a little dry onewand I was worried. But she pleaded so!” The woman cuddled her daughter’s body dose. “She loved the stories.” A man stepped out of the shadows leading a small boy by the hand and holding an even smaller girl on his shoulder. He looked haggard, his eyes burning.
“She came home saying her head hurt,” he said. “She wouldn’t eat or drink. She said she only wanted to lie down. We didn’t even notice when she climbed the ladder to the children’s sleeping loft. When I took our son up to bed, I saw her lying on her mattress fully clothed. I wanted to wake her, to tell her to put on her nightgown, but—” He bit his lip to keep from saying the words, as if his silence would have the power to undo the dreadful thing that had happened tonight.
His whole body began to shiver.
The little boy stared up at his father, more frightened by what he saw now than by his sister’s death or his mother’s screams. He wrenched his hand free of his father’s grip and put it to his mouth. He looked as if he were about to cry, but he didn’t.
He coughed.
Riker paced the length of his room in a cold, tightly contained rage. He could feel his insides being eaten up by anger, made worse by the certainty that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He was a Starfleet officer; he had seen many deaths. Most of them weren’t half as peaceful as Shomia’s. Her parents hadn’t even been aware of the moment when she slipped away. Almost every people he’d encountered, with the exception of the Klingons, agreed that a peaceful death was a blessing.
He knew all this. None of it soothed his spirit, and so he paced the room, hagridden.
Well out of Riker’s way, Mr. Data sat studying the Ne’elatian artifact that he had carried away with him from Ma’adrys’s hut. With the aid of a few fine tools he had brought along, the android had no trouble persuading the antique device to yield up its secrets.
“Fascinating,” he remarked.
“What?” Glad for any diversion, Riker was at the android’s elbow in two strides.
“I believe I have repaired this device, sir,” Data replied, holding the silvery disc at eye level. “Of course we cannot hope for it to be fully functional without its original power source, but that only affects its interplanetary communication capabilities.” “Interplanetary?” “With a sufficiently strong self-contained power source augmented by the device’s solar collector, this unit should in theory be able to transmit messages from Ashkaar to Ne’elat. It would definitely be able to transmit from the surface of Ashkaar to a vessel orbiting this world. That is its primary function, at any rate.” “I take it that it has others?” Now Riker was studying the object as intently as was the android.
“Without a doubt. The design and array of its interior components suggest that it could also transmit a strong distress signal as well as a heat ray of limited power. However, here is one function that I think you will find most interesting.” He used one of his slenderest tools to flip open a minuscule panel on top of the disc, then tweaked a sliver of metal near the center of the opened device. Immediately the room crackled with the sound of a woman’s voice.
“… at heart. I do not know how we can justify what we have… these people. I have seen how they perform… rites with reverence, how… old tales and give the gods true worship. Father, if you hear this… why I can never come back to Ne’elat. I will not consent… drink their souls, lead them deeper into darkness… death… turn myself into an agent of lies!” Data tweaked the sliver a second time and the voice stopped. “The quality of the recording has degenerated with time, but I think it can be salvaged.” “Is there more?” Riker asked.
“Quite probably. Shall I play it?” “Any danger of losing the recording once it’s played?” “I do not believe