Serpents in the Garden Read online

  He found his feet, but he was drenched in the mugato’s blood and spit, and he felt like he was on fire everyplace the thing’s fluids had touched his skin. He took a few deep breaths, sucking in fresh air to clear away the stench of the creature. The beast had a fresh, gaping wound on its back, not something that had been done to it today, but it hadn’t been there long; the damaged flesh around the cut was still red and raw.

  Remembering the second one, Kirk spun around. That mugato was dead as well, lying on its back, arms and legs splayed out to the sides. Freeholders were gathered around it, blocking his view. But Elanna saw him looking, and so did Tyree, and they parted, making way for Kirk.

  That was when he saw Rowland, on his knees. Rowland looked up, locked gazes with Kirk. There were tears in his eyes. He shook his head, made a shooing motion, trying to steer Kirk away.

  But Kirk was the commanding officer on this mission. He had a responsibility to his crew, small as it was. And he couldn’t see Burch anywhere.

  He managed to keep himself from running the short distance, but his stride was quick and determined. Breaking through those gathered around the mugato, he saw her, facedown on the ground behind the creature. It had got its claws into her. “Admiral,” Rowland said, choking back a sob. “Don’t look.”

  “I’m sorry, James,” Tyree said, putting a hand on Kirk’s back.

  “A Kahn-ut-tu . . .” Kirk began.

  “Could not help her now,” Tyree finished. “It is not just the venom.”

  He was right, and Kirk had known it before he even raised the possibility—a desperate hope, not a realistic one. Her head was torn almost from her body, and massive claws had ripped her back open to the spine. No medicine on this world could heal those wounds; even a starship’s doctor would be hard-pressed, with a fully equipped sickbay.

  “It took us all by surprise,” Elanna said. She looked stricken, her eyes still wide with terror, tears streaking her dirty cheeks. “We were watching the one you fought and this one came at us from behind.” She nodded toward a young man Kirk knew, one of Tyree’s closest friends. He sat on the ground as another Freeholder packed a bleeding chest wound with leaves. “Burch saved Yutan—the mugato would have killed him, had she not come between them. But no one could reach them in time to save her.”

  Rowland rose uneasily to his feet and approached Kirk. “I shoulda been able to do somethin’,” he said. “I let her down.”

  “You were shooting the mugato up front,” Kirk said. “I saw you.”

  “I know. But when I realized you had it under control, I ran back to help Burch. Only . . . well, I was too damn late.”

  “Under control?” Kirk might have laughed, had the circumstances been different. “The thing landed right on top of me.”

  “You always come out ahead, Admiral Kirk. I don’t know how you do it, but you do.”

  “I always have,” Kirk said. “And I probably always will, until the day I don’t.”

  “I’m glad this wasn’t that day, then.”

  Kirk looked at the sun, high in the sky. “The day’s a long way from over.”

  * * *

  Nyran slept only fitfully. He woke once to the sound of feet, or paws, stepping carefully on the ground outside. He heard huffing breaths and soft snorting sounds. Not the mugatos that had chased him earlier, but maybe anayla or scorids; both man-eaters. Nyran sat in the darkened house, watching the doorway and hoping whatever animal passed by outside couldn’t smell his fear.

  The night lasted forever. Finally, he dozed off as the sun was rising, and by the time he awoke again full daylight had come, washing the little settlement with brilliant gold. He was hungry, but couldn’t find anything to eat in the house, and he had lost his own provisions during the chase.

  The house had two rooms, the big front one in which he had slept, and a smaller one off it, through a doorway hung with animal skins. There were two sleeping mats in that second room, one larger than the other. Nyran guessed the smaller one had belonged to Joslen. Around the smaller mat, he found a couple of dolls made from sticks and scraps of fabric; playthings Joslen was too old for but had probably been too sentimental to abandon. She had left behind other things, too, as she’d told him. Clothing was folded neatly and stacked beside the mat, almost as if she might return at any moment. On top of the stack was a shard of mirrored glass, its edges wrapped in hide so they wouldn’t cut.

  What he didn’t find was her pot. She had said it was a ruddy red color on the bottom, sky blue around the rim, and about the height of both her hands put together. It did not seem like something that would be hard to spot, but he turned in a circle, scanning the whole room, and didn’t see it.

  Back in the big room, he walked slowly, eyeing every surface. Finally, he saw it, mixed in with the cooking pots on a rough-hewn shelf. He rushed to it and picked it up. He hadn’t been convinced by Joslen’s story about it—it was, after all, just a thing of clay. But when he lifted it he felt something, almost a vibration, an intimation of power he could not deny.

  It was no wonder she wanted the thing; the only surprise was that she had left without it in the first place. She had told him there wasn’t much notice—the town’s elders had made the decision to go, and they left that same day. The panic must have been palpable, urgency preventing her from thinking straight.

  He put it in the leather pouch that had started the trip with his pilfered fruits. He needed to get out of Rocky Bluff. He needed to find something to eat and then get back to Joslen, before he broke the pot or did something else foolish. Coming here had been foolish enough, or so he had thought at the time. Now that he actually had the pot, he felt accomplished, even proud. Maybe he had done something right, something she would appreciate.

  All he had to do was live long enough to show her.

  * * *

  He was almost back to where he had encountered the mugatos when Nyran heard shouts, roars, and the familiar crack of rifles. His first instinct was to drop to the ground, to try to become invisible until the sounds had faded. But he thought better of that. The animal sounds he heard could hardly be anything but mugatos. But the other sounds meant the mugatos were battling with people. He needed to get close enough to find out if those people were Freeholders, Victors, or somebody else. If they were Freeholders, and they had weapons, the battle would likely be brief, and he could show himself to them. If they were Victors, he would stay out of sight until they were gone.

  He made his way down the slope, veering off the path and taking to the woods, where he could keep trees between himself and whoever was down below. The sounds of battle grew in intensity as he neared; Nyran could hear individual voices crying out, but he could not yet understand the words.

  Then, even before he could see anyone, the fight was over. Voices were still raised, but now in wails of sorrow rather than the heat of combat. Nyran could almost see them. He eased his way nearer, moving quickly and quietly from one tree to the next. Soon he could make out figures, and then details. They were Freeholders!

  When he heard his mother’s voice, he broke into a run.

  * * *

  Kirk and Rowland were using hands, rifle stocks, and knives to carve a shallow depression in the ground. Freeholders were gathering rocks from the forest floor. They didn’t have a shovel with them, and Burch’s body was too damaged to be moved. They would leave her here, covered with stones to keep her safe, until the Captain Cook was back within transporter range.

  Two graves, now.

  Only Giancarlo Rowland and himself left. Rowland had said they needed to bring the other two along for security, to ensure Kirk’s safety. Hay and Burch had given their lives in defense of people they didn’t know, and the concept Kirk could only sum up as personal liberty.

  An honorable sacrifice. But he wished those sacrifices had not been made. Liberty was the birthright of beings everywhere. Too many times, however, someone had to die for that right to be protected.

  If he and Rowland were to die
, as well, would their efforts here have amounted to anything? Would Starfleet just close the books on this mission, write it off as another one of Jim Kirk’s wild ideas? He had violated regulations the last time he’d been to Neural, and he had involved himself in a nascent war. This time he had cleared the mission with Command, but that clearance was given reluctantly, and only after Kirk had made it clear that he would make the trip with or without permission.

  There was another alternative. He didn’t have to die here soon, but he could still die here. There were worse places in the galaxy. Here, he had friends, clean air, fresh water, and natural beauty all around. Kirk thought, given time, he could find love, if not with Meena, then with someone else. Over the course of his Starfleet career, he had visited many places, and a small handful of planets he had given momentary thought to settling down on. Always, though, the pull of exploration had been stronger. He had accepted a five-year mission and he’d had to complete it, even as he filed those few planets in the back of his mind for later consideration.

  Neural had always been near the top of his list. Although he had worried about the growing hostilities between the Hill People and the Villagers, he had liked the friends he’d made. The prospect of a simpler life, in tune with nature, marked by hard work and honest pleasures, was an appealing one.

  He stepped away from the digging for a moment to catch his breath. The struggle with the mugato had taken a toll. The weight of the thing had knocked the wind out of him. Burch’s death had compounded the damage, making it emotional as well as physical.

  “You okay, Admiral?” Rowland asked.

  “Yes, fine. I just need a second.”

  As he stood back, eyeballing the depression to determine whether it was deep enough, he heard the sound of footsteps coming through the trees. There were people gathering stones, but these sounded different: a little farther away, and more deliberate. Another mugato, or some other creature? He bent over, trying to appear casual, and picked up his rifle. The stock had been splintered, but it would still fire.

  Then a young man broke from the trees, calling, “Mother! Mother, it’s me!” Elanna shrieked, threw out her arms, and ran to him. They met and embraced, and although he was a teenager, as willfully independent as that age ever is, in that moment, wrapped in his mother’s arms, he looked to Kirk like the boy he had once been, frightened, relieved, and feeling safe.

  Fourteen

  The other Freeholders gathered around Elanna and Nyran. With everyone jabbering at once, Kirk couldn’t make out all that was said, but he heard the boy apologizing profusely for having worried his mother and the rest of the townsfolk, and for causing them to send a search party out looking for him. Elanna seemed to forgive him immediately, which was no surprise. Kirk was not in such a forgiving mood. The boy’s thoughtless escapade had cost a good officer her life. Kirk wouldn’t harbor a grudge, but at the moment he was none too happy with Nyran.

  Heading back across the two valleys toward Freehold, though, Kirk’s thoughts wandered in a different direction. He took Rowland aside and caught Tyree’s attention. The three of them brought up the rear of the pack. “I’ve been thinking,” Kirk said. “About that mine.”

  “What about it?” Rowland asked.

  “I can’t help thinking it’s the key to all this.”

  “All what?” Tyree inquired.

  “The weapons the Victors have, always slightly more advanced than what you’ve got. Their increased aggression. Taking more slaves, consolidating whole populations within their growing city.”

  “How does the mine connect to that?” Rowland asked. “I mean, I understand they’re takin’ laborers to work in it. But the weapons?”

  Kirk had wrestled with how much he should reveal to Tyree since he had arrived here. But the man understood that he was from somewhere else, somewhere beyond the sky. Letting him know that there were other races out there, some not so friendly, might be a violation of the Prime Directive, but that directive had largely been torn to shreds and tossed to the winds. If Klingons threatened Tyree’s people—even indirectly, through their puppets in the city called Victory—he had a right to know.

  And Kirk couldn’t get the final confirmation he needed without Tyree’s help.

  “The Victors have, I believe, teamed up with a race of beings called Klingons. They’re an aggressive, violent people, intent on spreading their empire as far and fast as they can, and they don’t care who gets in their way. The actions of the Victors, these past few years, are in line with how the Klingons do things. I think there’s something here on Neural that they want—some kind of mineral, presumably. They’re using local labor to extract it. Their home has always been resource-poor. That’s part of what drives the perpetual effort to expand their empire, in addition to their tendency to want to conquer whatever they see.”

  “What could it be?” Tyree asked. “This mineral you say these people want?”

  “I don’t know,” Kirk said. He almost heard Bones’s voice in his head as he continued. “I’m not a geologist, I’m a . . .” He paused, realizing that he’d been about to finish the sentence with, “I’m a starship captain.”

  He wasn’t, though. Not anymore. But on the bridge of a starship was where he belonged. He knew that, suddenly and with absolute clarity. He couldn’t stay on Neural, any more than he could remain parked behind a desk at Starfleet headquarters. He belonged in the captain’s chair.

  “Never mind,” he finished. “There’s only one way to find out for sure if I’m right.”

  “What’s that, Admiral?” Rowland asked.

  “I’ve got to get inside Victory,” Kirk said. “There’s no way to be sure from the outside.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Rowland offered.

  “As will I,” Tyree said.

  “Not you, Tyree. Too many people there know you, and you’re too important to your people to risk it. But nobody there knows me. The number of people in the galaxy who even know I’m on this planet, besides you and your fellow Freeholders, I can count on one hand.”

  “But, James—” Tyree began.

  Rowland cut him off. “Don’t bother, Tyree. When Admiral Kirk makes up his mind about somethin’, he’s stubborn as a mule. Well, I guess you don’t know what a mule is. But it’s just about the most stubborn animal we’ve got, back home.”

  “I have observed that, about our friend,” Tyree said. “Very well, James. You and Rowland, then. But I will keep an eye on you, as much as I can from outside.”

  “Fair enough,” Kirk said. “Sounds like a plan.”

  * * *

  “Do not do it, James. The danger is too great.”

  He was sitting with Meena on a bench in Freehold’s central plaza. An intermittent breeze carried gray smoke rich with the smell of roasting meat from a nearby fire pit. With Nyran’s safe return, the mood of the town had lightened somewhat. Freeholders had lost loved ones over the past few days, and those losses weighed heavily, but Kirk had seen that they accepted the inevitability of mortality. They grieved, they mourned the loss, but they refused to let it define them or cripple them with sadness. They turned to one another, survivor to survivor, and the sturdy fabric of their society bolstered their spirits. There was also talk of revenge, which concerned Kirk, because it would only perpetuate the cycle.

  “There’s danger everywhere, Meena,” Kirk reminded her. “I’ve lost two of my people already. If I can’t get the answers I need, the danger will never cease, for any of us.”

  “I do not understand how risking your own life will lessen the threat to the rest of us.”

  “I . . . wish I could tell you more. Wish I could tell you everything. About me, where I come from. What I’m doing here. But I can’t.”

  She had been looking at him, but now she turned away. He studied the curve of her neck and shoulder as she gazed toward the fire. “Why not?”

  “There are . . . rules . . . that govern how much I can say.” Tyree already knew more than he should, but he
had held that information close. Kirk didn’t dare make matters worse by telling anyone else.

  “Whose rules?”

  “I can’t tell you that, either. They are wise rules, and as difficult as it sometimes is, it’s better for everyone involved if I obey them.”

  She turned to face him again, and he saw uncharacteristic anger flash in her eyes. “Better for you.”

  “Not always better for me, no. I didn’t come here to change Freehold, Meena. I came to fix my past mistakes, if I could. To help protect you and your people from a danger that you can’t even know about. But your people, your society . . . those things have to be allowed to grow, to evolve, with as little interference from outside as possible.”

  “And that is where you come from? Outside?”

  “That’s as good a word for it as any.”

  “I would like to know this outside,” Meena said. She put a hand on Kirk’s leg, just above the knee. It felt good there. Right. He liked its warmth, and the firm, confident pressure of her squeeze. “I would like to know you.”

  “I would like that, too. Very much. But I can’t stay here, Meena. It’s a beautiful place, and you’re a beautiful woman. I like being with you. I like the Hill People. But I can’t stay much longer.”

  “How long?” She didn’t move the hand, didn’t let up on the pressure. He didn’t entirely want her to.

  Kirk calculated the days until the Captain Cook returned, at the end of the two-week window. The days were shorter on Neural, so it wasn’t a direct comparison. “I don’t know. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Victory. What I find there might affect how long I stay. If I find the answers I need right away, then I’ll be here for another week, perhaps.”