He found none.
“Bridge to transporter rooms!”the voice of Captain Okagawa shouted through the intercom. “Do we have everyone or not?”
Fighting back anger as he continued to stare at the unmoving body of Ensign McCown, al-Khaled called out, “O’Halloran! What’s going on?”
“The Klingon ships are breaking orbit,” replied the ensign. “They never fired the first shot at us.” Reaching across the console, he once more reactivated the intercom system. “Bridge, this is transporter room two. I have eight retrieved here. Six plus the Tholian and one casualty.”
Over the speaker, al-Khaled heard another voice respond, “Transporter room one here. We have nine. Only one sustained injuries, but they’re not critical.”
“That’s only seventeen,”Okagawa’s voice snapped. “Who’s missing?”
Looking around the transporter room, al-Khaled already knew the answer, but still he asked the question. “Where’s Xiong? He was near my location when I was beamed up.”
A moment later, the voice from transporter room one replied, “He’s not in our group, sir.”
“Son of a bitch!” al-Khaled growled, lunging from the transporter pad and moving around the console, all but elbowing O’Halloran out of the way. Hitting the comm switch, he said, “Lovellto Lieutenant Xiong. Come in, Xiong.” There was no response, but al-Khaled repeated the call even as he reset the transporter controls and scanned for life signs on or beneath Erilon’s surface. None revealed itself. Feeling his temperature rising, he ripped open the parka and shrugged out of it, letting it drop to the floor as he resumed his work at the console. “Bridge, I can’t get a lock on Xiong’s communicator signal. Are you scanning for him?” It took almost fifteen seconds before science officer Xav replied with the words Mahmud al-Khaled did not want to hear.
“We’re not picking up any human life signs anywhere, Commander. He’s either dead, or he’s not down there.”
37
It was too hot to eat, Pennington decided as he stared at his bowl of soup. Except for an hour before sunrise and a few hours after sunset, it seemed it was always too hot to eat. As far as he was concerned, Vulcan was the great weight-loss secret of the Federation.
Sitting at a table on the veranda outside Sobon’s home, Pennington gazed across the courtyard, watching members of the village going about their work. As always, they were unaffected by the heat, which was still oppressive even at this elevation. Even M’Benga seemed to have become acclimated to the temperatures in the time they had been here. The only person who still seemed to be suffering was Pennington himself.
I always was slow on the uptake.
“Would you like more water, Mr. Pennington?”
He looked up at the sound of the new voice, finding himself eye-to-eye with a young Vulcan girl standing next to his table and carrying a stone pitcher. Pennington guessed her age to be no more than fifteen years, at least as they would be measured on Earth. She was dressed in a smaller version of the soft suit worn by almost every member of the commune he had encountered. Her long black hair was drawn up into a ponytail and tied with a leather thong, and her face was tanned and free of the age lines that eventually would crease her smooth skin in the years to come.
He held out the oversized mug he had selected for use during his meal. “That’d be lovely, my dear. Thank you.” As she began to pour, he said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. What’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I am T’Lon,” the girl replied. “My mother works as one of the keepers of Healer Sobon’s house, and I assist her on days when I am not in school.”
Once she had filled the mug, Pennington took a long drink, relishing the taste of the cool water. Drawn from a well fed by an intricate aqueduct system running down the mountain from an underground spring, the water possessed a vital, refreshing flavor, which seemed odd when Pennington remembered what he was drinking. He had taken the opportunity during his early-morning walks to investigate the aqueducts, fascinated by the craft embodied in the system’s design and admiring that it—like everything else created by the citizens of Kren’than—was accomplished without any form of mechanization.
I could learn to like this place,he thought, not for the first time. Though he was a citizen of a culture where nearly every facet of day-to-day life was inexorably intertwined on some level with modern technology, there was something to be said for the simpler, matter-of-fact existence of this village’s residents. There was an appeal, Pennington had decided, to notbeing connected to the entire galaxy or even to the neighboring village without getting up and walking to that destination under your own power.
If it could only be fifty degrees cooler, and if they maybe had a pub or two, it would be almost perfect.
He realized after a moment that the young girl was still standing at the table, looking expectantly at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, straightening his posture in his seat. “Is there something else? Have I done something wrong?”
T’Lon shook her head. “No, you have not acted improperly.” Gesturing toward the sheaves of parchment lying on his table, she asked, “I was curious about what you might be writing.”
“That’s a good question,” Pennington replied, glancing down at the papers and grimacing at the sight of his handwriting. “Judging by the looks of these, I’d say my pen was having an epileptic fit.” He looked up at T’Lon, who stared at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding up one of the papers. “My writing is a bit out of practice. I’ve gotten used to dictation or even a keyboard. Anyway, I suppose you could say it’s a travelogue, an account of my time here.” He had taken up the notion as a means of passing the time, writing something about each day he spent among the people of Kren’than. It was an enjoyable exercise, admittedly made more so because of his having to write everything in longhand. No electronic devices, including the portable data manager that was his life’s blood as a reporter, were allowed within the village’s confines. The tenet forced him to get back to basics, and he relished the tangible connection to his work as the ink flowed from the pen onto the parchment, guided by his will as he transcribed thoughts and feelings.
No bloody idea what I might do with it, but I’ll worry about that when it’s finished.
When T’Lon remained in place after another moment without saying anything, he asked, “Do you have another question?”
The young Vulcan nodded. “I wished to ask whether you would be willing to answer a question about T’Prynn.”
Surprised by this, Pennington shifted in his seat. “Do you know her?”
“No, though I have mentored under the guidance of her sister, T’Nel. I wished to inquire about her current condition.” Lowering her gaze, she added, “We are not given much in the way of information, though many of us are curious.”
Pennington smiled at the child’s inquisitiveness, able to relate to her youthful, passionate desire to know about everything that might be happening around her. He had been like that at her age, a trait that had often gotten him into trouble with his parents, his teachers, and pretty much anyone irritated by his insatiable curiosity.