Spirit Walk, Book Two Page 8

  “He comes out again,” Kaz said quietly.

  The Changeling regarded Kaz. The Trill met his gaze evenly.

  The Changeling thought about it. Gradak resurfacing could be a bad thing or a good thing. Gradak and Chakotay had known Arak Katal, had liked him, had trusted him. It was Gradak’s sense of paranoia that had caused Kaz to think about genetic manipulation rather than a freak accident. That sense of paranoia could be dangerous.

  On the other hand, if Kaz were fighting his own personal demons, he might not notice or care if his captain said or did something out of the ordinary.

  “I trust both of you,” he said, as Chakotay would. “You’re Starfleet officers. You’ll put the safety of your fellow crewmen above all else. I trust that neither of you will let this get out of hand.”

  “No, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Kaz.

  “Report to the briefing room in two hours,” said Chakotay. “And be prepared for the sounds of jaws hitting the floor during your presentation.” He strode toward the door.

  “Captain?” called Kaz.

  The Changeling froze. “Yes?” he said, turning around.

  “Now that you’re back from Loran II, I’d really like to treat those injuries.”

  “Chakotay” laughed, one hand going to his face to touch the “wounds.” “I’d forgotten about them. Don’t worry about it, Kaz. You need to concentrate on preparing that presentation for the senior staff.”

  “Yes,” said Patel absently, staring at the computer screen. “He does.”

  Kaz hesitated, clearly torn between two aspects of his duty as doctor.

  “It’s all right,” the Changeling said. “There’ll be plenty of time to examine me once your presentation is over. I’ll be a good patient, I promise.”

  The smile bled from his face as he turned and strode out of the room. He was grateful for the inadvertent reminder Kaz had given him. He needed to get to his quarters and take the reversal drug as soon as the proper amount of time had elapsed. Then he could safely submit to any scan Kaz might want to put him through.

  “Hurry up, Moset,” he muttered under his breath. He didn’t know how much longer he could wait, now that success was so very near.

  Chapter 10

  CHAKOTAY WAS NOT SURPRISED to see Kathryn. After all, they were stranded here on this planet, alone together, possibly for a few weeks, possibly for the rest of their lives. Joy, shyness, delight, worry, longing for his friends, secret pleasure at being alone with her—all rushed to flood him as he regarded her.

  She sat atop a rock overlooking a lake. She must have just emerged from its cooling depths, as water still glistened on her bare shoulders and long hair. She looked, he thought, like a mermaid, or a siren from legend.

  But how was it that she was dressed in a traditional swimming sarong of his people?

  Kathryn smiled as she saw him approach, and then suddenly he realized that he, too, had a sarong wrapped around him. It was then that he knew he was dreaming, and sorrow, sweet and haunting in its gentle melancholy, wrapped him.

  The poignant sound of a flute reached his ears. He turned toward the sound, not at all surprised to see Blue Water Boy playing on the grassy shoreline of this tranquil lake. Chakotay’s childhood friend was fifteen, the age he had been the last time Chakotay had seen him. The age at which he would forever be emblazoned on Chakotay’s memory. Unlike Sekaya, Chakotay had been denied the privilege of seeing Blue Water Dreamer, the adult man. He wondered what that man had been like. Sekaya had told him a little, but her story was deeply personal, and she had not gone into detail.

  He was therefore surprised when the boy morphed into a man. His hair was not as long and had more than a few silver strands entwined in the glossy black. Blue Water Dreamer was of average height and build, shorter and less muscular than Chakotay. There were wrinkles around his dark eyes, but those eyes were every bit as untroubled and clear as Chakotay remembered; as untroubled and clear as the lake before them.

  A dream? Chakotay wondered.

  Or a vision?

  “They’re the same thing,” said a voice. Chakotay turned to see himself. A deep shudder went through him. Was it he? Or was it the Changeling, a being he had known as Arak Katal the Barjoran and Andrew Ellis, the priggish first officer?

  The other Chakotay knew what he was thinking. “I’m you, don’t worry,” he said reassuringly, and Chakotay believed himself. He looked again at the figure standing before him, clad in the standard Starfleet uniform, the number of pips on his collar marking him as a captain. He looked down at himself, seeing bronze skin and a colorful wrap around his loins.

  Which am I?

  “They’re both you” came Kathryn’s voice. She, too, had a twin now, a short-haired, no-nonsense woman clad in the formal dress uniform of a Starfleet admiral. Chakotay glanced from one to the other, knowing he cherished both the woman and the admiral.

  “You keep trying to compartmentalize us.” He knew this voice, too, and turned from Kathryn’s warm smile to see Sekaya sitting next to Blue Water Dreamer. He was still playing his flute, the music a score to the drama that was unfolding in Chakotay’s dream/vision. Chakotay’s heart hurt as he beheld his sister and his childhood friend. They looked good, sitting side by side. If only Fate had permitted them to be together.

  “Not fate,” growled his other Self, dark eyes flashing, arms folded across his uniformed chest. “Moset. Moset killed him.” And suddenly that other Self split in two, and Chakotay now looked at a Maquis captain. The Starfleet Self was now calm and cool, in control. The Maquis blazed with fury, with a burning desire for vengeance.

  And still Blue Water Dreamer played, calm and peaceful, as the drama of the Chakotays unfolded. Three of them there were now; his cultural Self, his Starfleet Self, and the Maquis. Traditionalist, adventurer, rebel. He was all of these. Janeway, too, was more than one aspect of her personality. They were all Changelings, in their way, transforming from one to the other as the need surfaced.

  Even Blue Water Dreamer had made the transition from boy to man in Chakotay’s mind. And that was a transition he had never witnessed.

  Chakotay’s mind drifted, oddly at this moment, to his friend Kaz. Was this how it was to be a joined Trill? To have all these aspects at play in your mind at one time? It was amazing to him that Trill didn’t all go mad.

  As the thought struck him, pain shot through his head and he groaned aloud. He brought his hand to his temple, and his questing fingers found not short, almost spiky hair and skin but hard nubbins of technology.

  We are the Borg. Prepare to be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.

  Even as the chilling voice of thousands speaking in perfect harmony shuddered through his bones, Chakotay knew it to be wrong. The things in his head were not the Borg’s doing, not this time. This time someone else had put them in. Someone who didn’t have the excuse of having his mind taken over by a hive mentality. Someone who was most definitely an individual.

  Kathryn disappeared. Blue Water Dreamer disappeared. Slowly, fading reluctantly, Sekaya followed suit. Chakotay saw himself staring at the chamozi on a log, the image he’d spotted while on Earth with his father. The chamozi, scrawled on a rock on a distant moon. The chamozi, written in chalk on the surface of Loran II. The best bait imaginable, it combined Chakotay’s curiosity, deeded to him by the Inheritance of the Sky Spirits, and guilt over his father’s death.

  The pain in his head changed. It softened, slightly, but became warmer. Suddenly standing before him was the alien whose name he had never known, but whose ancestors had genetically bonded with his ancestors, and who pressed his hand to Chakotay’s heart and—

  Chakotay’s eyes flew open and breath rushed into his lungs with a gasp. All at once, he knew. He would have figured it out before, but at the outset he had been so groggy, and then later distracted by worry for his sister and the pressing need to escape.

  The Changeling, in the f
orm of Arak Katal, had somehow contrived to send a Gul after Chakotay. Not to capture and punish the crew of a Maquis ship, though that’s what Evek had believed, but to capture and analyze one single, specific human being. For whatever reason, Crell Moset wanted to take samples from Chakotay, to finish his analysis of the colonists of Dorvan V.

  Did you know that you were the only inhabitant of Dorvan V who ever left the planet? And I’m a completist.

  Chakotay had wondered at that comment, about the megalomania that would drive a man to such lengths just to experiment on a lone representative of a not-in-considerable population. He had thought it trivial, an example of a mind so obsessed by ego it could think of nothing else. But now…

  “Chakotay?” Sekaya’s voice, rich with concern. “Are you all right? I thought when he put you under that…” Her voice trailed off.

  Normally he would speak quickly, to reassure and comfort her. But now Chakotay was too busy sorting out his thoughts, trying to grasp them and mold them into something coherent before they slipped through his fingers.

  He turned his head to regard his sister. “I know what Moset wants,” he said, his voice harsh and raspy, as if it had been unused for some time. “What the Changeling wants. They want—”

  “The Sky Spirits,” the Changeling said at the briefing, after the troublesome Kaz and Patel had finished their presentation and every single member of his senior staff had turned to stare, slightly open-mouthed, at their captain.

  Kim, Campbell, and Vorik nodded after staring only a short time. They had been the only ones on Voyager when Chakotay had had his little ancestral adventure. The Changeling looked around at the others, forced himself to look a little amused and abashed, and said, “It’s a long story.”

  “I think we should hear it even if it takes a hundred and one nights,” said Astall.

  “A thousand and one,” said Lyssa, softening the correction with a friendly grin.

  “Oh,” said Astall. “Well, perhaps we don’t have quite that much time. But I’d like to hear any explanation for this, Captain.”

  “As would I,” said Marius Fortier, staring at Chakotay with what the Changeling thought was rather a rude and blatant curiosity.

  He sat back and sighed. Fortunately, this was a tale he knew perhaps even better than Chakotay himself. It was a tale he’d immersed himself in for years.

  Ever since they’d trapped him in that hated body of Andrew Ellis, and he’d dreamed of becoming free…

  “It seems that over forty-five thousand years ago, Earth was visited by benevolent aliens. They saw a race of primitive people in the far reaches of the world. These people didn’t have a language, and knew only how to use the crudest tools and fire. But apparently, there was a passion for the land and the natural world that impressed these aliens, and they decided to give this primitive race—my long-distant ancestors—a gift. A genetic bond with the aliens. This bond gave my people a sense of adventure, of curiosity.” He spread his hands. “It’s no wonder I wanted to join Starfleet and see the quadrant. I was genetically predisposed to seeking out a life of adventure.”

  “Captain,” said Fortier, a little edgily, “this is fascinating and I am certain quite meaningful to you. But I don’t understand what it has to do with your DNA being found in that of an ape-like creature on a world far from Earth.”

  His dark gaze wandered back to one of the images displayed on the viewscreen, that of the charging creature who had attacked Patel, who bared an open mouth crammed full of teeth and extended clawed forepaws.

  Who was Marius Fortier’s brother.

  “I know you’re angry and confused, Mr. Fortier,” said the Changeling, as he knew Chakotay would have. “But it’s important that you understand the background, or else what I’m going to say isn’t going to make sense.”

  Fortier choked back his anger, and “Chakotay” continued.

  “This much is fact. But as facts often do, over time, it became legend. I grew up on tales of the Sky Spirits, and I gave those stories about as much credence as we give Greek myths today. But then, when I was fifteen, my father and I went to Central America on Earth, the place where my genetically enhanced ancestors eventually settled. We went there looking for the descendents of these ancient ones, known as the Rubber Tree People. And to my shock, we found them.”

  He touched his forehead, his temple and the space between his eyes. “I first saw this tattoo that I now wear on their faces. Their faces, which had a strange cleft here, between their eyes. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.” He smiled sadly. “I was too eager to be gone, to get back home. To go to Starfleet Academy. But I was to recall that strange cleft several years later, in the Delta Quadrant.

  “You can imagine my shock when, while Voyager was visiting a moon in search of polyferrinide, I stumbled across an ancient symbol of my people called a chamozi.” He rose and went to the screen, tapping in a command, and the image appeared.

  “We followed up on it, and that was how I learned that the legends of my people were real after all, in a sense.” He manipulated the controls and another image of the chamozi appeared. “Harry, you never asked specifically why Sekaya and I went to the planet’s surface.”

  Kim frowned. “You said that Ellis had found something of archeological interest.”

  “Chakotay” nodded. “Yes,” he said. He pointed at the image. It was the one he’d had Moset write. “He found this.”

  Kim stared. “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “No, I’m not. I wish I were. If I hadn’t seen that symbol and felt compelled to investigate…well.” He decided not to push the oh-my-poor-sister’s-dead angle too much and contented himself with blinking quickly and swallowing hard. He saw the faces around the table soften with compassion.

  He cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, we saw evidence that the Sky Spirits had been here as well. Kaz is fairly certain that the creatures that attacked the away team were once the colonists who chose to stay behind. I think that they, like my own ancestors, genetically bonded with the Sky Spirits.”

  He’d hoped there would be nods and this would placate them. But he didn’t get that lucky.

  Kaz was the first to voice his concerns. “That would explain the combination of Fortier DNA and the close match with yours, Captain. But there are a lot of questions that this theory doesn’t answer.”

  “I thought you said that the alien told you his people hadn’t been back to the Alpha Quadrant for thousands of years,” said Campbell.

  “And the aliens have successfully and harmoniously bonded with humans before, as you just said,” said Astall. “Why would such a bonding now have so disastrous an effect on the colonists?”

  “Yes,” said Fortier, a hint of amusement in his voice. “There is not that great a difference between a Frenchman and a Central American Indian—although we make better wine.”

  The real Chakotay would have responded to Fortier’s attempted witticism with a friendly, heartfelt smile. The Changeling had no time for that. They were closing in on the truth, and he had to stop them before they unwittingly uncovered it.

  “Who knows?” he replied to Astall’s comment. “Maybe something went wrong this time. Maybe there was something in human DNA forty-five thousand years ago that’s been diluted, or something new that’s developed. I know this is a terrible tragedy and a great shock, but I think it’s obvious that Loran II is now a dangerous place. Recolonization there is impossible.”

  Fortier’s brows drew together and he opened his mouth to protest. The Changeling held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, Marius. But what’s going on down there is too important for me to get involved in right now. We need to return to Earth and consult with Starfleet Command before I can put any more lives at risk.”

  He felt Astall watching him with great intensity, and saw Kaz looking confused. No, this wasn’t what Chakotay would have done. But it was what the Changeling had to do.

  “Permission to speak freely?”
That damned Kim, at it again. The Changeling wanted to say no, but instead he nodded, bracing himself for what the security chief was going to say.

  “Sir, there are members of the Federation down there who need our help. Those colonists went to Loran II because we told them it was safe. Granted, there was no way we could have anticipated that things would unfold as they did, but now that it’s happened, we can’t just walk away and leave them there.”

  “With all due respect, Captain,” said Kaz in his most formal voice, “Lieutenant Kim is correct. These beings were once human. There’s a chance that if we can examine them, we can isolate the alien DNA and make them human again. At the very least, we need to try.”

  The Changeling realized that he should have known better. If he insisted on returning to Earth now, judging by the way both Astall and Kaz were looking at him, they’d pronounce him unfit for duty and relieve him. With “Ellis” gone, the next in line would be Kim, and that would spell disaster.

  Sighing, the Changeling rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. Mr. Kim, you’re right, of course. I just don’t want to risk anyone else after we’ve lost Ellis and…and Sekaya. But my personal feelings shouldn’t get in the way of my duty to your people, Mr. Fortier. They need our help. So let’s give it to them.”

  He turned to his helm officer. “Lieutenant Tare, set a course for Loran II. Warp five. Let’s get back to our stations, everyone.”

  They rose, concern on their faces, and more than a few gave their captain glances as they left. To the Changeling’s vast annoyance, both Kaz and Astall stayed behind. Although he knew the two had just met on this mission, they had apparently bonded quickly and now presented a united front.

  “Captain, I think you should come to sickbay,” Kaz said quietly. “I want to run some tests on you and treat those injuries.”

  “Certainly,” the Changeling agreed readily, surprising Kaz a little bit. A sufficient amount of time had passed that he knew he would read as entirely human. Thank goodness for Moset.