Go To Part Six
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“How long has it been since we heard from DelMonde and Rendell?” Sulu asked Vale as the chairman of the committee holding the floor of the Parliament gaveled a ten minute recess in proceedings.
Lindstrom had secured seats for them in an upper gallery. Sulu doubted they could have found places without his help. The natives of Beta III were quite engaged with their form of participatory governance. The crowd of observers surrounding them hung so raptly to every word of debate on issues such as allocation of funding for special education programs, proposals for incentivizing population redistribution, preservation of pre-Landru era architecture, housing allocation for Federation staff, funding for new settlement initiatives, and infrastructure needs for existing outposts that there were few opportunities for side conversations without being immediately shushed into silence.
Peace City’s Planetary Parliament Building was simultaneously reminiscent of the old U.S. Capitol and the Palace of Westminster. Unique to itself, the structure had an unadorned, homespun quality that made it unlike either. Like the U.S. chamber of governance, the Betan venue was rounded and had something like the feel of an antique opera house. Following the style of the British version, elected representatives sat on benches divided into two sides with a raised island in the middle to accommodate the person presiding over of the body and their army of clerks. The open form seating allowed for a dynamic shifting of position during debate to visually represent where each legislator stood on “yea” or “nay” issues.
“Dr. Rendell made a brief check-in from the museum,” Vale reported as natives all around them continued to chatter earnestly about the current hot topic of discussion – whether the writings of Landru should be officially recognized as historical documents or religious texts. “Later I received a directional pingback that indicated they had entered an underground establishment on 14th street. I haven’t heard anything since then.”
Sulu located the spot where Lindstrom was seated on the Parliament floor. Although not a member of the legislature, as a guest speaker, the director was assigned an honored spot on the front bench for this session. Unfortunately, at this point in the proceedings, this privileged locale made Lindstrom highly visible. He was currently being buttonholed by a half-dozen irate citizens waving fingers in his face.
Sulu almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“When we get out of here, call them,” the captain ordered his Communications Officer. “Check in with the ship too.”
“The Drake knows our location,” the lieutenant acknowledged with a nod. “I will give them a full status update.”
“Good.” Sulu paused a moment, smiled, and waited until he was sure he had his subordinate’s full attention before saying, “You’re doing a good work, Vale.”
The Indiian glowed slightly. “Thank you, sir.”
“Our mission, however…” The captain frowned and shook his head. “… Might be headed to hell in a hand basket…”
The lieutenant tilted his head to one side. “You feel we might be in danger, sir?”
Sulu could understand his doubt. There was nothing in the atmosphere around them that currently screamed “Red Alert!” The bystanders who hadn’t departed for the restrooms or refreshments were reciting their favorite aphorisms about peace and joy of “the Body” to each other in order to forward their side of the dispute. Behind the central podium, delegates from the next faction of presenters were unfurling a banner that outlined a seven point proposal for a comparative studies approach to examining Landru’s regime alongside other governmental systems.
“I know Lindstrom,” the captain explained, beginning at the beginning. “I served with him. He’s a Boy Scout.”
“Sir?”
“He’s very ethical,” Sulu elaborated, then laughed at the dubious look on his subordinate’s face. Given the amount of outright deception the Indiian had uncovered, the captain did not blame him for his incredulity. “Let me revise that a little. As you have seen, Lindstrom lands a bit on the arrogant side, so – obviously -- he tends to value his own code of ethics over that of others. He concealed aspects of what is going on here, but I think it’s plausible that he intended to reveal them -- or at least partially reveal them -- at his own pace and in a manner that would present him and his team in a better light.”
The lieutenant nodded slowly. “Possibly. I did sense more sensations of relief rather than growing panic in him as we uncovered the truth.”
By this point, Lindstrom had been drug over to the sidelines to confer with a group of constituents holding signs proclaiming that excluding Landru’s teachings from the schools constituted cultural erasure.
“The situation he’s landed in, though….” Sulu shook his head. “As nobly as Lindstrom might want to put it in terms of buying medical supplies to save lives -- what he’s doing is dealing with Orions for narcotics.”
“Yes,” Vale agreed, very firmly.
“He and his team have violated Federation policy by intermarrying with the native population under circumstances that are prohibited under the guidelines of their mission,” the captain summarized. “We don’t know about other members of his team yet, but we already know that Lindstrom has wife who has a serious illness that our medical technology can’t reverse.”
On the floor of the great meeting hall below them, the director had been abruptly called away from the protestors in order to attempt to call off a team of parliamentary staffers who had set up a large chalkboard at the edge of the podium and were starting a list of licensing requirements for Landru-focused schools at someone’s behest.
“Lindstrom told us that there was no contact between the traders and the native population,” Vale observed. “Are you speculating that – despite what he said -- perhaps the Orions are aware of… uhm… the personal lives and difficulties faced by the director and his team?”
“Lindstrom’s group could set up a trading system that cut the natives out of the loop, but the Federation staff would still have contact with the Orions. If the Orions became aware of the Federation team’s … indiscretions -- which the traders might in the course of negotiations -- that information could give them a certain amount of leverage over them.”
“Blackmail?” the Indiian concluded tentatively.
Sulu nodded. “Unlike those of Mr. Lindstrom, I’ve never been impressed by the ethical standards of Orion traders.”
While the director and the staffers were fully engaged in ardent disagreement, a legislator took advantage of their inattention to strolled up to the chalkboard. The representative boldly erased the unfinished list and began to draw up an inventory of certification requirements for teachers charged with properly communicating the new Landru curriculum.
Vale shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t quite come together though, does it, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s in it for the Orions, Captain?” the lieutenant asked. “Even if their involvement is under the guise of independent traders, there will be consequences to intergalactic relations if it is discovered that they have interfered with a Federation Protectorate. It doesn’t seem like a few tons of borolithium every quarter would be worth the potential risk.”
“Yeah.” Sulu tapped the arm of his chair to indicate Vale had hit a key point. “Exactly. What does Beta III have that makes it worth the headache? That’s where we are, Vale. We’ve got a table full of pieces to this puzzle -- but some of the most critical ones are still missing.”
Vale inclined his head to one side, trying to sort out his captain’s always somewhat difficult to interpret emotional spectrum. “And this disturbs you?”
“I’m worried because I suspect that with each piece of the puzzle we put together; there are individuals all around us who will become exponentially more uncomfortable than I am,” Sulu explained. He then took in a deep breath and smoothed the collars of his coat decisively. “Vale, prepare a summary of all our findings -- including these speculations.”
The Indiian straightened. “Yes, sir.”
On the Parliament floor, one of the staffers had finally noticed the legislator who had commandeered the chalkboard. A full-scale wrestling match was now underway way for control of the eraser with Lindstrom acting as unwilling referee.
“On my word– but not a second before…“ Sulu instructed carefully, “transmit it to the ship with instructions to relay the report straight to Star Fleet Headquarters.”
Vale took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“We may need to exercise a little leverage of our own.” The captain frowned at the contrast between the slapstick aspects of the scene below him and the potentially fatal consequences of the actions he was anticipating. “I’m starting to be afraid that we may find ourselves in the delicate position of knowing just enough to be deadly.”
“Any ideas as to where we should head?” Noel DelMonde had to shout to make himself heard. As the two officers from the Drake might have gleaned from the prevalence of wind farm equipment visible through the window, the plains they stepped into upon escaping were extremely blustery.
“Out of this wind would be preferable!” The doctor called back, struggling as her voluminous skirts swirled wildly with the tempest.
The engineer pointed at a clustering of glass and metal silos just beyond the string of shacks beside the one they had exited. “That looks promisin'.”
Rendell nodded impatiently and shielded her eyes from the gale. “Lead on!”
DelMonde was not at all sure they were going to find much of value in any of the industrial structures. Although he assumed the structures were part of the mining operation, the exteriors weren’t readily identifiable to the engineer as anything in particular. Situated randomly on the wind-blasted plain, the collection just looked like someone had stuck a hand-full of giant hat pins into a big red mud-pie. He was quite relieved, therefore, to see horizontal outlines of what was recognizably ground transport tunneling as they rounded the corner of one of the first tall buildings.
Following the glassed-in tunneling a couple blocks, the engineer was even more pleased to discover the trail led to what looked very much like a boarding platform.
“There!” he shouted to his companion, pointing towards the shuttle station.
“Fine! Fine!” the doctor, still struggling in a flurry of lace and petticoats, agreed readily.
When they arrived, the platform did display a satisfying array of signs of being a public transport station. Its only flaw – and that was a quite serious one – was that it lacked the presence of any form of transportation.
“Should we buy a ticket?” Rendell suggested, freeing one hand from her flying skirts long enough to gesture impatiently at a panel of buttons on a free-standing kiosk nearby.
“It worth a shot,” DelMonde agreed.
There weren’t any instructions or an obvious way to insert payment, but a few experimental taps on the controls triggered a pneumatic door which opened in the platform in front of them. An almost modern-appearing shuttlecar rose from a subterranean chamber.
“After you, darlin’” the engineer said, standing aside politely for the doctor to enter as the door of the small transport snicked open.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Rendell settled herself into one of the six cushioned seats with a breathless sigh of relief. “Well, this looks comfy. At least we should be ahead of our pursuers.”
“Honey, you probably gonna wanna strap yourself in,” the Cajun warned, surveying the control panel in the front of the vehicle. “It not Federation tech. I t'ink I can figure this out, but…”
The doctor nodded and began reaching for her seat’s safety harness. “You’re just going to start mashing buttons.”
“Uh… I gonna make some educated guesses,” the engineer corrected. “But yeah. That the fastest way t' get us goin' under th' circumstances.”
“Under the circumstances,” Rendell said, clicking the harness into place and giving him a “go ahead” wave. “I am not inclined to critique your methodology.”
At her signal, the Cajun composedly set his fingers down on the control panel like a pianist preparing to play an exacting etude. After the first three “notes” produced no results, the engineer paused, tapped his bottom lip thoughtfully, then reset his hands and pressed a mighty “chord” that sent the little shuttle surging forward on its track at a breath-taking gallop.
Since he had not followed his own advice, the Cajun tumbled backwards onto the deck of the vehicle, landing flat on his back at the doctor’s feet.
“Well, that was bracing,” she commented, smiling kindly down at him.
“Yeah,” the engineer replied sourly as he rose and dusted himself off. “More fun than a danged barrel o' monkeys, non?”
The doctor released a long, exhausted breath as the little shuttle plunged down its track into a cavern leading through the mountainside in their path. “I haven’t traveled by shuttle car since the last time I was on leave on Aldebaran IV,” she commented as the shuttle’s internal lights automatically activated. “This design is quite close to modern, isn’t it?”
“Pretty close.” The Cajun reseated himself behind the control panel – still not taking the precaution of utilizing the safety harness. “Far as I can tell, it powered by a borolithium battery. Probably got rechargers in th' roof an' th' rails. Controls are pretty basic.” The engineer un-shouldered the tricorder they had found in the kidnapper’s shack and began to take a series of readings. Using the data points he gleaned, he made adjustments to the shuttle’s guidance panel. “Cross referencin' wit' th' tricorder,” he reported after a few moments, “there’s a couple tracks this t'ing can run on. I got us on th' one headed back t' Peace City. We at th' top speed settin' – a brisk 250 kilometers per hour.”
“Positively galvanizing!” Rendell replied in a very encouraging manner.
DelMonde could tell that he did not have the doctor’s full attention. When he turned to check on what might be distracting her, he saw that she had picked up a comb and small mirror from somewhere in the chamber while they were on the hunt for salvageable items and was now using them to try to tame her wildly windblown curls. The Cajun’s tel-empathic abilities told him it was more than his life was worth to ask the doctor what had prompted her to value these items as priority survival gear.
“That gives us an ETA of a li'l over an hour an' a half t' join back up wit' th' rest o' th' team,” he informed her instead. “An' sure makes me wish that either this shuttle had a communications system I could figure out or that nobody had ripped out th' comm unit on that survival pod.”
“I suppose we do have an abundance of information to share with our companions.”
“More'an that,” the Cajun said sourly. “Sulu is gonna bust a gut when we miss our next check-in deadline.”
Rendell lowered her hand mirror and smiled. “I am certain that he will appreciate your new-found passion for punctuality.”
“Six months from now, he may forget everyt'ing 'bout this damn mission 'cept fo' th' fact that our last check-in was at that cabaret on 14th Street,” DelMonde predicted bitterly. “An' if I go t' him wit' a promotion request, I guarantee you he surely gonna say, “Yeah, I gonna consider that -- jus' as you show me that you can start gettin' your ass out a bar long enough t' make a check-in call like you did NOT do on Beta III…”
T he doctor turned back to her mirror. “The two of you have a… unique interpersonal dynamic upon which I choose not to comment.”
“At least not t' th' two o' us.” The Cajun crossed his arms. “An' not t' our faces.”
“You are correct,” the Haven confirmed, as she delicately rewound a curl into place. “Were you able to glean any meaning from the ravings of those lunatics who kidnapped us?”
DelMonde sighed and shrugged. “I got more from what they was t'inkin' than from what they was sayin'.”
“I certainly hope so. What they said was gibberish.”
“This is true.” Since it was apparent that they were going to be on the shuttle for some time, DelMonde rose, crossed to the back of the shuttle and removed his heavy blue frock coat, careful not to pollute the air with too much of the red dust that had settled on it. “So th' main ones o' our kidnappers – not th' waiters, not chorus boys – used t' work tech fo' Landru,” he explained, laying the coat across one of the unoccupied seats. “By our standards, they didn’t really understand much o' what they was doin', but in this here place, it made them pretty high class stuff. They not much like being down-graded t' zombie street sweepers.”
The Haven made an ironic noise at her reflection in the little mirror. “I can sympathize.”
“Hey…” The engineer paused in the middle of loosening his cravat. “You callin' Star Fleet a zombie street sweepin' outfit?”
“Not out loud,” the doctor soothed. “Not to your face.”
“Well, anyway….” The engineer resumed unbuttoning his pearl cufflinks. “Even though ol’ JTK put Landru down like a sick hound, that hunk o' junk was a jus' a big computer an' computers have backups an' subsystems…”
“Which our friends have rebooted?”
“It sorta look like they have.” DelMonde nodded as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves. “Here an' there in bits an' pieces in li'l ways.”
“Wouldn’t Lindstrom’s team detect the uptick in power readings?”
“Yeah, they should. An' maybe they have – ‘cause some o' this tech is nice stuff that worth havin' up an' runnin'.” The engineer gestured in a circle that encompassed the shuttlecar. “Like this monorail fo' example. Or even th' whole borolithium minin' setup. That all old tech. It not rate a mention on our planetary survey, did it?”
“I don’t recall it.”
“Prob'ly 'cause it was all there an' already operatin' ten years ago.”
“That does seem like a logical possibility.”
DelMonde paused, looked at the position he had recently occupied at the shuttle’s controls, frowned, then sat down in the seat opposite the doctor.
“Look,” the engineer began, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “I know we got an hour an' a half t' kill, but how 'bout I jus' skip forward t' th' most worrisome part o' what I have figured out so we can both go ahead an' have as much time t' chew it over as possible, huh?”
Rendell lowered her mirror with a resigned sigh. “That seems like an unfortunately practical option.”
“We both been wonderin' what would tempt th' Orions into pokin' their stubby green noses into a backwater hole like this, non?” the engineer asked, tapping his own nose. “‘Specially since they likely t' get themselves a good black eye from th' Federation?”
The doctor nodded. “Exactly.”
“But what if them Orions heard themselves a story?” The Cajun waved his fingers as if miming the spreading of the threads of a tale through the ether of space. “A fantastic story 'bout a starship captain findin' a super-computer on a li'l backwoods planet runnin' a mind-control program sooooo good it had pretty near a whole planet whooped into bein' zombie street sweepers?”
“Oooh, yes.” The Haven nodded sagely. “The slave-trading contingent of the Orion Federation do indeed have a most refined appreciation for advances in mind-control technology. They would have been bitterly disappointed if anyone had been so careless as to destroy that sort of computer.”
“An' very excited t' get some hints from some 'independent' traders in their circle o' influence that some o' that tech had survived bein' talked t' death an' was still operational.”
“Only to be disappointed again at how incompetent the technicians were?” Rendell speculated.
“An how li'l o' that tech was left an' that none o' what was workin' was th' juicy mind control stuff they wanted,” DelMonde supplied.
“So a Plan B was in order…?” the doctor hypothesized.
The engineer sat back and crossed his arms. “Which it looks like to me was blackmailin' some o' Lindstrom’s folks t' come up wit' a hybrid that revitalized parts o' th' Landru computer system usin' Federation tech…”
The doctor frowned. “Oh, that’s fiendishly utilitarian…”
“Yeah,” the engineer agreed with a shrug, “if you can make it work.”
“And thankfully, they couldn’t?”
“Not so good, not so far.” DelMonde wagged a finger in negation. “T' make complex systems like that compatible you would need…”
“An expert?” Rendell guessed with a smile. “A Star Fleet engineer, perhaps?”
“Comme moi,” the Cajun confirmed, tapping his chest.
“Hmm… I begin to wonder if your inclusion on our happy little party of landing was just our captain’s tribute to your devastating charm and good looks or if…”
“My presence might have been at the request o' someone here on th' planet?” DelMonde spread his hands and looked side to side for a possible culprit. “Lindstrom did seem a bit down in th' mouth that I turned out not to be th' chief engineer…”
“Food for thought.” Rendell tapped her lower lip speculatively. “Definitely makes our kidnapping seem not so much of a surprise…”
The Cajun nodded. “Kinda make you wonder why it took that long.”
“I’ve had another troubling thought,” the doctor confessed.
“Pile it on, honey.” The engineer opened his arms in invitation. “We on a roll now.”
Rendell inclined her head towards the back of the ground-car. “There is no shuttle behind us, is there?”
DelMonde retrieved his tricorder from the front seat. “Nope,” he reported after taking a reading. “Not'in' in range. How you know? You t'ink we snuck out that good?”
“I’m not going to disparage our skills or our hard-fought escape,” the doctor replied, holding a hand up in protest. “However, by the feel of it, I would say that we were knocked out by a light stun, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah, I reckon.”
“That means we’d been unconscious for…”
“…We’d only be out fo' twenty minutes or so at th' longest,” the engineer realized, sinking back down into the seat beside here. “No way we’d been under fo' an hour an' forty-five minute shuttle ride like th' one we on now.”
“Our kidnappers are going to arrive back in Peace City long before we do,” Rendell said, drawing the next a priori conclusion.
“Damn those sneaky bastards t' hell in brass buckets!” Delmonde frowned and shook his head. “I hope Sulu’s ready for ‘em.”
“Vale to Rendell. Vale to….” The lieutenant froze, puzzled as the sound of two communicators activating chirped directly behind him.
The two officers from the Drake and Lindstrom turned to find a woman in a black dress trimmed with crème-colored lace walking towards them through the bustling crowd exiting the Parliament building.
The woman smiled and held out the missing communicators. “Are you looking for these?”
“I’m much more interested in the location of the two people they belong to,” Sulu said, accepting the devices.
“This is as good as we can do for the moment,” the woman replied with an rueful shrug.
“Do you remember Rani Bachchan, Sulu?” Lindstrom said, by way of introduction.
The captain smiled. “Of course.”
Bachchan returned the expression in kind. “Of course.”
Their relationship had been brief but pleasant. Her family was part of the East Asian agro-tech conglomerate that had made developing the Martian lowlands profitable in the early twenty-second century. The two of them had been in departments with adjacent lab spaces on the Enterprise during the time he had worked in Astrophysics.
Rani was as lovely at 35 as she had been as a 25-year-old biologist. She still had the same sweetly wise large brown eyes. The way she wore her luxuriant long black hair coiled in a braid pinned at the back of her head emphasized her naturally solemn demeanor even more than her old upswept hairstyle had done. She now had the air of a very pretty judge.
“Rani is our…” Lindstrom paused. “Uhm… We all wear so many hats…”
“This time I’m here as the head of what passes for our Security force,” Bachchan informed Sulu with an apologetic gesture towards the communicators. “One of our aspiring pickpockets tried to barter these at drugstore on 14th street.”
“I’d say your pickpocket is well on their way to achieving some of their career goals,” the captain replied ruefully, hefting the purloined devices in his hands.
Lindstrom shook his head. “When we came here, there was no crime.”
“It’s depressing how quickly they’ve picked up dysfunctional behaviors like these,” his Security Chief agreed.
“Captain,” Vale interjected. “14th street was Rendell and DelMonde’s last check in.”
Sulu turned back to Bachchan. “Is there anything there that might be of particular interest?”
The Security Chief made a noncommittal gesture. “One of the A-Zones houses what passes for a bar around here.”
“Rumor has it there’s an unauthorized entrance to the Maze down there.” Lindstrom contributed.
“The Maze?” Sulu repeated, danger signals going off inside his head.
“One element of how Landru controlled the population was that the computer had a goon squad – the Lawgivers,” the director explained. “Part of their mystique was their ability to suddenly appear in force at a moment’s notice in case of any violation of proscribed norms.”
“They achieved this by travelling by shuttle-cars through a network of underground tunnels throughout the city,” Bachchan elaborated. “We call those tunnels “the Maze” now.”
“Of course we’ve blocked all the entrances we could locate,” Lindstrom said.
“But there are always rumors about someone finding one that we missed or figuring out some alternate way in,” his Security Chief added.
The captain frowned. “That could be problematic.”
“Like we need another headache…” The director gave a rueful half-laugh.
Sulu nodded. “You do seem to have more than your…”
Screams tore through the crowd in the street beyond them as four hooded figures in brow robes wielding pipe-weapons broke from their midst.
“Archons!” their leader cried in a hideously distorted machine voice. “You defile the Body!”
“No!” Lindstrom stepped between the Drake officers and their would-be attackers. “No! Not again!”
“Archons!” This time the awful sound was coming from the crowd behind them. “Archons! Contamination!”
Time seemed to dilate for Sulu. His pulse was pounding painfully in his ears.
“Quickly, this way!” Rani Bachchan was pointing towards an alley.
A brown-robe was aiming the firing end of a pipe at Vale.
Sulu heard himself shout, “Vale, move!” but knowing the sound was going to be too slow to be effective, he rammed the Indiian out of the blast’s way.
As he staggered out of a twisting crouch, Sulu saw the lieutenant on the ground, pointing desperately, “Captain, behind you!”
The captain’s consciousness did not fade out instantly when he was hit by the blast. Instead, it performed a bizarre, star-studded, slow-motion, rainbow-fadeout as he felt himself dropping as gently as a falling leaf to the ground while in the background Lindstrom was yelling, “Not again! Not again!”
“Yes,” was his last coherent thought -- strangely sweet and calm as a sigh. “Again.”