The Folded World (6 page)

“Correct.”

“There are electrical impulses on that big ship,” Kirk said. “They're faint, but who knows how life-forms might read to our instruments from within that dimensional crazy quilt. For all we know, we could be picking up traces of the
McRaven
's crew.”

“Captain, you're not sayin' that
you'll
be making the bloody trip, without even knowing you'll be able to get back.”

“I'm counting on you to figure something out while I'm gone, Scotty.”

“Sir—”

“I'll know you'll find a way.”

A broad smile spread across the engineer's face. “It's what I do.”

•   •   •

Kirk and Spock were on the bridge plotting out the specifics with Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov when Chan'ya showed up, accompanied by Gonzales, Perkins, and Rinaldo.

“Captain Kirk,” Gonzales said. “We were hoping to find you here.”

“What can I do for you?” Kirk asked.

“Minister Chan'ya would like to know if there's been a decision about the
McRaven
.”

“You know our decision, Minister. The only open question has been how to get to the ship, and we believe we've solved that.”

“The mission will be conducted in a time-sensitive manner, we trust,” Chan'ya said.

“If there are survivors on that ship, I want to reach them as soon as possible, yes. But if we do find any, then we'll have to work out how to get them safely back to the
Enterprise,
and that might take some time.” He had to work to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “You've heard all this before, Minister. Nothing has changed except that we've figured out how to get there.”

“We understand, Captain,” Chan'ya said. Her skin was a darker red than he had ever seen it. “We merely hope to encourage the utmost speed. We would rather you accept that it is too late to help anyone on board that ship and continue on to Ixtolde. But if you refuse—”

“I do.”

“Well and good. We will file our protest with the Federation and wish for a speedy and successful conclusion to what we feel is an unnecessary and ill-conceived venture.”

Ill-conceived? You don't know the half of it,
Kirk thought. “Thank you,” he said.

Chan'ya turned and headed for the turbolift. Kirk was getting used to the move, always executed with the same impatient air. The others followed her. This
time, however, Perkins hung back. He approached Kirk with urgency in his eyes.

“Captain,” he said quietly. “May I meet with you and your command staff?” He glanced toward the turbolift. The door had opened and Chan'ya and the others had stepped on. “It's urgent. Say, fifteen minutes in your briefing room?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Kirk echoed.

Perkins turned toward his colleagues. “Thank you, Captain,” he said loudly as he made for the turbolift, covering himself. “I'll visit there, when I have the opportunity.”

“What was that about, Captain?” Spock asked when the door had closed.

“I have no idea,” Kirk answered. “But we won't have to wait long to find out.”

“There aren't any giants, you know,” Gillayne said. She and Aleshia were huddled beneath a tin roof, with rain hammering down on it so loud they almost had to shout to be heard. The rain had wet the dry landscape enough to release the locked-in aromas of the plants, sweetening the air against the other, more predominant stink. Where the rain struck the bodies of those who had fallen, it sizzled, and the bubbling flesh gave off a rancid stench, so anything that diluted it was welcome.

“What do you mean?” Aleshia asked. She'd heard rumors before, of course. But her father swore giants were real, and so did Kalso and Yignay and the other elders.

“Just that. It's not giants. Same as this rain is not rain at all.”

Aleshia looked at where the rain spilled off the roof's lowest corner and pooled on the ground, yellow and frothy. This was not typical rainwater, that much was true. “What, then? Is it not wet?”

“Wet, yes,” Gillayne said, tugging at her gray shift, which had been torn, patched, and torn again. “But
did you see the clouds gathering before it fell? They were pure white, not dark like the ones that bring rain. And they formed in minutes, not hours.”

“But . . . Father said—”

“We've been lied to our whole lives, Aleshia. That's nothing new.”

“How do you know, then?”

“I asked.”

“Asked who?”

“Margyan,” Gillayne said. She spoke the name so softly that Aleshia strained to hear. But she understood the reason. Nobody spoke of Margyan, not where others could hear. Some called her a wise woman, others a sorceress, but none of them liked her. The villagers let her stay because she spent money in their shops and because nobody was sure how she might react to banishment.

“You saw her?”

“Two nights ago, in the dark, I went to her house.”

“You didn't! Alone?”

“Of course alone, do you think I'm mad?”

“But—”

“I had questions. I knew she would have answers.”

“And she told you things?”

“What did you think she would do? Eat me?”

“Perhaps. What are they, then, if not giants?”

“She isn't certain. But it is no accident, she says, that people die each time. Same with the rain. They're trying to reduce our numbers, she says. Cut us down.”

“Why, Gillayne?”

“Why fill our heads with lies? They want to keep us stupid. Well, ignorant. So we won't know how to fight back, she says. So we'll keep selling them our crops and livestock for a pittance.”

“Who? The cities?”

“According to Margyan, even the cities are ruled by someone else.”

Aleshia's head was too cluttered with the things Gillayne was saying. It was as though her friend were giving her a hundred threads, all unspooled, and she couldn't grasp the end of even one of them and follow it all the way. “But then, why kill us?”

“They're coming for us, she says. Won't be long, now.”

“How does she know all this? And why doesn't anyone else?”

“She says she knows because she watches and listens. As for why the rest don't know—maybe they do. Maybe they just refuse to see—or to admit that they do know.”

“And who is it who's coming for us? Who rules the city-dwellers, according to her?”

Gillayne swung a hand toward the sky. “Them! The ones who stay away.”

“There is so much I don't understand,” Aleshia said.

“Talk to Margyan, then. She is friendlier than people say. She's lonely.”

“She looks so—”

“What? Haggard? Worn out? If you had lived the life she has, why, you would look that way, too.”

“I'll go then,” Aleshia said. “To Margyan's. I want to know the truth. I
need
to know it.”

“You were always like that,” Gillayne said. “Even as a little girl.”

“Well, I haven't changed, then.” Aleshia looked at the rain, pattering against the ground, dissolving the carcasses of those caught out in it.
When will it end?
she wondered. She was hungry; she and Gillayne had been trapped under the metal roof for hours.

She would wait a while longer. As long as it took.

If Gillayne was right—or if Margyan was—then every hour underneath a roof of tin was, at least, one more hour of life. And those, it seemed, might be fewer all the time.

•   •   •

Kirk and Spock went to the briefing room. McCoy joined them there a couple of minutes later, and Kirk laid out the plan for him.

“Jim—” McCoy said.

“Bones, we've got to get to that ship, and there's no other way to do it.”

“It sounds like suicide, Jim.”

“That's why I'm going alone.”

“The hell you are!”

“The doctor is right, Captain,” Spock said. “You are the commander of this ship. You cannot go, alone or otherwise.”

“I will not order anyone else to undertake a mission like this.”

“Jim—”

The doctor's protestation was cut off by the door buzzer. “Come,” Kirk said.

The door whooshed open and Perkins stepped inside quickly. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said.

Kirk waved to the empty chairs around the table. “Have a seat.”

The Federation diplomat shook his head. He was a walking bundle of nerves. He had a soft, round face, unlined and devoid of hair. His body was also soft and round, his clothes billowing like balloons mostly full of water. His eyes darted this way and that, as if watching for pursuers. A thin sheen of sweat coated his face. “You can speak freely in here,” Kirk assured him. “Our privacy is assured.”

“Gonzales would kill me if he knew I was here.”

“Nobody's getting killed,” Kirk said. “Now, what did you want to see us about?”

Perkins paced about the room as he spoke. “It's what they won't tell you,” he said.

“Gonzales?”

“Yes, and Minister Chan'ya. She knows, but I don't know that the rest of her party does. It's classified, you see. Very, very classified.”

“Above my level?” Kirk asked.

“I'm afraid so, yes.”

“But you're going to tell me anyway? You
understand what the consequences of that could be.”

“I do. But I also understand the possible consequences of
not
telling you. That's not something I'm willing to do.”

“All right, then,” Kirk said. “What is it we need to know?”

“The
McRaven
's mission,” Perkins said.

“I admit I have wondered about that. It seemed to be headed toward Ixtolde.”

“It is. Was, rather.”

“To what end?” Spock asked.

“Do you know the name Albert Tsien D'Asaro?”

“It doesn't ring any bells,” Kirk said.

“An inventor,” Spock said. “From Rouen, France, on Earth.”

“That's right,” Perkins said, obviously surprised and impressed at Spock's knowledge. “More recently of Muscatine, Iowa, in North America. He has worked on methods of increasing crop productivity that repair and enhance soil rather than leaching the nutrients from it. He is not well known, but he is highly respected in his field, and he has many friends on the Federation Council. He's been appointed ambassador to Ixtolde.”

“But Ixtolde's Federation membership isn't confirmed yet,” Kirk said.

“Right again. That's why his trip was so secret. While all the attention was focused on the
Enterprise,
he was going ahead of us, to get a head start learning
the Ixtoldan language, their customs, the lay of the land, if you will. The idea was that when they were confirmed—which everyone believes is just a matter of time—he would be ahead of the game. And his particular scientific skills might help Ixtolde, since they've had issues with widespread famine there. The Council hoped he could help with that quickly, before another growing season passes.”

“So if he doesn't make it—”

“If he doesn't make it, the Federation will appoint a new ambassador. But the schedule will be thrown off, the growing season will come and go, and potentially thousands of Ixtoldans will die before we can get somebody else there with his background and knowledge. He was the right man for the job, and the urgency is extreme.”

“Who knows about this?” Kirk asked.

“Just Minister Chan'ya. She's the one who set it up with the Ixtoldan government.”

“But she's been pushing us from the beginning to abandon the
McRaven
and hurry on to Ixtolde.”

Perkins let out a sigh that seemed to bubble from deep within. “I can't pretend that I understand the minister's agenda. I suspect that what she puts first is Minister Chan'ya, and every other consideration comes in a distant second.”

“Are you saying that she's workin' against the interests of her own people?” McCoy asked.

“Not necessarily,” Perkins replied. He chewed on
his lower lip for a moment. “I don't always understand how her goals line up with theirs, that's all. But there's so much about Ixtolde that I don't know—that none of us know. That's part of why D'Asaro was going there ahead of us, and the entire reason for our trip. Minister Chan'ya's actions might come into clearer focus after we know more about the place and its inhabitants. For now, I'm as much in the dark as you are. I just thought you needed to know that the ambassador is on that ship.”

“I appreciate that, Mister Perkins,” Kirk said. “And I'll do everything I can to get him safely off it.”
If,
he left unsaid,
it's not already too late. We can only hope to reach it in time.

•   •   •

When Perkins was gone, Kirk turned to the others. “Now do you agree that I have to go?”

“It still could be somebody else, Jim,” Bones said. “It doesn't have to be you.”

“I disagree. My first responsibility is to the Federation, not just to the
Enterprise
. If the Council is concerned about potential famine on Ixtolde and has sent someone to help avert it, then I have to do whatever I can to make sure that he gets there.”

“The ambassador is probably dead,” Spock pointed out. “Those electrical impulses are faint and likely do not represent organic life-forms.”

“But we don't know that,” Kirk insisted. “We don't know how the unknown nature of the fold affects
what our instruments are picking up. And we won't until we go there in person and find out.”

“As the ship's science officer,” Spock said, “I must point out this is a unique opportunity to study a phenomenon never before encountered. I must insist on accompanying any mission into the dimensional fold.”