“Aole Miller bled for you.”
Tavia looked away. “Why are you still here? Can’t you and your friend just take him and go?”
“Not until we understand the reason he died. Do you know, Tavia?”
“Maybe.”
“Were you there when it happened?”
Tavia dribbled her basketball a few times. “No. But I was the one who found his body.”
Kadru’s star was past its zenith when Desai met with Ying. She found the governor exactly where she said she’d be: the open-air café that looked out on the town square. Coffee for two was already set out on the table, and she sat alone. Ying gestured for her to sit, and Desai eased gratefully into the empty chair. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
Ying reached for the carafe and filled Desai’s cup. “Whatever you have to say, Captain, I hope you’ll make it quick. I have work to do.”
“I wanted to apologize for being so confrontational with you yesterday,” Desai began. “I’m a trial lawyer, accustomed to adversarial relationships, and lately I’ve had trouble remembering that not everyone facing me across a table is my enemy.”
Ying studied her face. “Apology accepted,” she said finally. “But I get the sense that isn’t really why we’re here.”
“I came to Kadru for two reasons, Doctor Ying: to understand why Aole Miller died, but also to finish what he started. Now I realize the question I should have been asking is, Why did Aole come here?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Desai groped for words before she finally admitted, “You’re right about Starfleet: it can’t be everywhere to stop bad things from happening. There are times when it’s compelled to make terrible decisions, and also times when it simply fails. But every so often it remembers that it has limitations. That’s why the Federation decided these evacuations were necessary, and why Aole came here in person: it was an act of desperation, because he believed convincing you of the need to leave Kadru was too important not to make every conceivable effort. The Taurus Reach is incendiary, and Starfleet doesn’t want any more Gamma Tauri Fours. When we discontinue regular patrols in this sector, Kadru won’t be safe anymore.”
In the silence that followed, a profound sadness enveloped Ying’s face until finally the governor said, “That’s why we have to stay.”
Fisher and Tavia crept uphill through the fog-shrouded rain forest kilometers south of New Anglesey. The heat and humidity were intense, and Fisher saw worry in his guide’s eyes when she looked at him. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she said.
“I must be quite the sight,” he chuckled. “Is it much farther?”
“No, but—”
“Then I’d rather not turn back now, if it’s all the same to you.”
He didn’t argue when she insisted they take a break, and while the two of them spent a few minutes resting and rehydrating, another terrifying animal cry rang out, not unlike the ones Fisher had heard since he and Desai first arrived on Kadru. But this time it sounded much louder and close by.
Before Fisher could ask about it, Tavia urged him to be silent and follow her. They took a well-worn path to the top of a rise, keeping low as they peered over the top. At the bottom of the slope on the other side, a carpet of fog obscured the surface of a great river, which Fisher recognized by the muffled roar of rushing water. Two hundred meters out from the hidden shore, a great rock jutted up from the fog, and perched atop it, searching the mist for easy prey, was a large reptilian predator.
The raptorlike creature was breathtaking, at least three times the height of a man, built for speed and violence. Its dramatic colors mesmerized Fisher, as did the batwing membranes that occasionally flexed open from its flanks while its four eyes attempted to pierce the fog.
Fisher started to ask about the creature, only to find Tavia’s hand over his mouth. “Keep still,” she whispered. “It’s about to feed.”
Fisher continued to watch when, quite suddenly, a huge burst of water rose behind the raptor, followed by a snakelike head at least four meters wide with massive jaws that snapped shut around the creature’s body. The raptor thrashed in futility as the leviathan dragged it off the rock and down into the shrouded water.
“My God,” Fisher said softly. “What was that?”
“The reason Aole died,” Tavia said.
Desai didn’t understand what Ying was trying to tell her, but seeing the tears streaming from the governor’s eyes, she felt certain she was close to something important.
Before she could ask, both women noticed a number of colonists running south through the town square. They looked almost frantic.
“What’s going on?” Desai asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ying said, quickly wiping her eyes and pushing away from the table when she saw Helena Sgouros running toward them.
“Fisher’s missing,” she told Ying. “So is Dawes.”
“You’re sure?” Ying asked.
Sgouros nodded. “Witnesses placed them by the hoops a few hours ago. No one’s seen them since.”
Desai flipped open her communicator. “Desai to Fisher. Desai to Fisher, please respond.” Nothing.
“Dawes isn’t answering, either,” Sgouros said. “If they’ve turned off their comms, they must be in the rain forest.”
Ying cursed. “It’s Aole Miller all over again.” To Sgouros, she said, “We need to start organizing search parties.”
“My people are already rounding up volunteers,” answered New Anglesey’s head of security. “They’re meeting at the dome.”
“Good,” Ying said. “Take Desai into custody and confine her.”
“What?”Desai said, as Sgouros drew her sidearm.
“It’s for your own good, Captain,” Ying said.
“The hell it is. You can’t—”
“I can and I will,” Ying snapped. “This is our world, and Starfleet people with no understanding of Kadru have no business venturing into places they don’t belong, and where they aren’t welcome. If that wasn’t clear to you before, I trust it is now.” She showed her comm device to Sgouros. “Home in on my transponder signal and catch up to me after she’s been secured.”
“Understood.” Ying took off at a run, and Sgouros gestured with her stun pistol. “Start moving, Captain.”
Led away at gunpoint, Desai endured the humiliation of being marched through town as Sgouros’s prisoner. “Where are we going?”
“Just keep walking,” Sgouros advised, eventually directing Desai through a side street near the edge of town, to a lot filled with several windowless sheds and construction equipment. They stopped at a structure bearing a sign that read, THERMOCONCRETE.
With her pistol leveled at Desai, Sgouros used her free hand to unlock the shed. She yanked on the metal door, and it swung outward with a loud creak. The shed was half empty, the walls on either side stacked with sacks of powdered building material, each one looking as if it weighed at least fifty kilos—nothing Desai could use to break out once she was locked in.
“Inside,” Sgouros ordered.
So don’t get locked in,Desai told herself as she crossed the threshold.
She waited until she heard the creak of the door starting to close. Then she spun around, pivoted on one leg, and kicked out sideways with the other. With a loud crack the door swung back outward, slamming into Sgouros’s face.
Desai charged out, tackling the dazed head of security. She pressed her advantage, seizing hold of Sgouros’s wrist and banging her hand repeatedly against the pavement until she released her grip on the weapon.
But Sgouros was already regaining her wits, shifting as if she were preparing to roll Desai off. Desai thrust the heel of her palm sharply against the taller woman’s temple, and Sgouros’s head lolled to one side as she lost consciousness.
Desai moved into a crouch and relieved Sgouros of her comm unit. She scrolled through the personnel list, searching the more than three hundred names until she saw the one she wanted: DAWES, OCTAVIA.
She tried opening a channel. Nothing. She selected the tracking function, and the unit’s display gave her a map of the local terrain, with a blinking arrowhead in the center. Rising numbers in one corner of the display ticked off the increasing distance. Dawes was on the move.