Caretaker (14 page)

She knew the surprise showed on her face, compounded by the fact that an instant later she didn’t know why such a request had even startled her. The closest habitable planet—and Neelix certainly wasn’t going very far, very fast in any of the rotted hulks around them—didn’t even have enough surface water to support a brown savannah. That meant what she took for granted every morning in her coffee was probably the most valuable bargaining tool she could have hoped for. “If you help us find our missing crew members, you can have all the water you want.”

Neelix dropped his jaw in dumb amazement, then jerked it shut with a snap too late to disguise the reaction. “That seems like a …” He stammered trying to find the words. “… reasonable arrangement.”

More than reasonable, and Janeway had the advantage of knowing it.

“Good. We’ll beam you over and tow your ship into our shuttlebay.”

She had a feeling the little wreck wouldn’t survive a tractor beam’s stress without blowing every atmospheric seal.

“Mr. Tuvok, go to Transporter Room Two and meet our guest.”

Neelix shifted uncertain eyes between Janeway and the Vulcan’s retreating back as Tuvok turned without comment for the turbolift.

“Beam?” Neelix squeaked uncertainly.

Janeway lifted an eyebrow. So transporter technology wasn’t the norm among spacefaring worlds on this side of the pond. That was something worth keeping in mind. “We have a technology which can take you instantly from your ship to ours. It’s quite harmless,” she hurried to assure him when something that might be either excitement or terror crossed his face. “May we?”

He lifted his arms in acceptance, marvelous wonder still lingering on his face as the transporter reduced him to sparkling atoms and ghosted him away.

The first thing Tuvok noticed about their guest was his smell.

He might have postulated that Neelix’s people exuded a protective musk, like toadlets on Rudolpha IV. Or even that the glandular secretions from Neelix’s reproductive endocrine cycle only registered as unpleasant to a Vulcan’s hypersensitive nose, while smelling positively sensual to members of his own species. Like Klingons, or certain humans at certain points in their development. Tuvok might even have been willing to exercise that peculiar human custom Benefit of the Doubt and construct a working hypothesis based on Neelix’s recent exposure to a derelict vessel of unknown origin and dubious ventilation. But then Neelix straightened out of his nervous crouch and stumped down the steps to stand less than an arm’s length from Tuvok, and the Vulcan was forced to admit that every last molecule of stench emanated directly from Neelix and the skittering insectile menagerie that scrambled for cover beneath the alien’s equally stink-drenched clothes.

Tuvok coughed politely into his palm.

“Astonishing!” Trundling around behind Tuvok, Neelix bobbed up onto his toes to wave cheerily at the transporter technician behind the transparent protective barrier. “You Federations are obviously an advanced culture.”

Tuvok turned to watch the little creature’s curious progress around the transporter room, but found himself unable to willingly step any closer. “The Federation is made up of many cultures. I am Vulcan.”

“Neelix.” The alien spun, thrusting out a hand in an exuberant offer of friendship. “Good to meet you.”

The thought alone of touching skin that both smelled and crawled forced another little cough out of Tuvok. That tiny breach in his Vulcan discipline so startled him—yet another inappropriate reaction, his cool inner voice informed him—that he didn’t even have time to be grateful that Neelix was too quickly distracted to insist that Tuvok shake hands. Tuvok held his ground, reciting each stanza of the calming Pok’Tow in his head, as Neelix scurried across the room again to poke at an intercom panel with one dirty finger.

“Interesting. What exactly does all this do?”

“I assure you—” It took every ounce of his Vulcan control to step politely forward and gesture Neelix toward the transporter-room door.

“—everything in this room has a specific function. However, it would take several hours to explain it all. I suggest we proceed to your quarters.” He was so pleased by Neelix’s willingness to precede him out into the corridor that he added smoothly, “Perhaps you would care for a bath.”

Neelix blinked up at him earnestly. “A what?”

For the first time, Tuvok experienced something close to regret that Janeway had successfully rescued him from the Maquis.

Kim had awakened that morning feeling cold, lonely, and just a little bit sick. The first two he attributed to being held hostage in a colorless alien hospital with nothing to wear but a light cotton robe, and no one he knew to depend on or talk with.

The one time he’d been hospitalized as a child—for exposure to Rigellian fever after playing Starfleet explorer with a passel of rambunctious green children from an Orion diplomat’s entourage —his mother and father had hovered about his quarantine suite the entire time. He hadn’t even felt sick then (he never did get around to developing symptoms), but he’d still had all the books and films any boy could have wanted to drive boredom away, and Mother had even brought him his clarinet, in case his stay expanded to something longer than a week. As it was, he’d been allowed to go home after only three days, and his mother still threw him a “welcome home” party and invited all his friends.

Just remembering her round, happy face in comparison with all this dullness pushed a fresh clot of loneliness into his heart, and Kim had rolled over on his cold alien cot and cried quietly to himself until the worst of it went away.

Now, the silence of the dim infirmary only exacerbated the sick weakness in his stomach. Like an old analog clock, whose ticking both kept you awake and forcibly reminded you of the winks you were missing.

Sitting up, he tried to adopt an air of professional calm as he tugged wide the collar of his gown and peeked down it to inspect the knobby growths he’d already examined some five or six other times since first waking up in this strange setting. A shaky little sigh escaped him.

“Still there,” he whispered to himself wryly. The rest of him couldn’t seem to think up a clever reply.

The rash of warty flesh didn’t seem to have spread, but, then, Kim hadn’t been able to conduct any sort of systematic study with only the occasional peek now and then. It sort of fell into the category of “didn’t want to know.” He felt a little guilty about that—he couldn’t help thinking Paris would have owned up to every ounce of the unpleasantness, and even made a joke about it, to boot. But Kim could only finger these unfamiliar additions to his arms and chest and neck, and wail somewhere deep inside himself, I’m only just an ensign! I’m not supposed to die—not yet! Honest, perhaps, but far from very helpful.

A groggy snarl from the other side of the infirmary snagged his attention, and Kim froze with his gown bunched up in his fist, glancing nervously toward the sound. He listened tensely for a moment, then relaxed with a silent laugh when the broken cry sounded again and he recognized the voice as coming from the swarthy Maquis who had tried so desperately to escape the night before. Hell, I probably wouldn’t know what she sounded like if she actually talked! She’d certainly been vocal enough up to now, although not exactly communicative.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Kim tossed a quick glance toward the closed infirmary door before padding barefoot across the cold floor to the only other occupied bed in the room.

She lay as stiffly as if she were struggling, even with the alien knockout drug still tying her to drowsiness. Kim thanked his own better instincts that he hadn’t exploded, too, upon first coming around; if he had, both of them would be fighting their way toward consciousness, not just her. He studied her dark face and ridged brow, and wondered what bloodlines had carved such permanent fury into her face, painted such a dark luster through her raven-black hair.

“It’s okay. …” A waft of chilly air hiked up the back of his gown, and Kim reached back to clutch it shut as he sidled a little closer to her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he soothed.

The Maquis jerked upright with a horrified gasp. Kim jumped back, suddenly glad he hadn’t tried to touch her, and found himself meeting her accusing glare with what he was sure was a look of stunned utter innocence. “Who are you?” she hissed, kicking her blankets aside.

“What is this place?” The growths on her arms and neck were more livid and extensive than his own.

Kim, his hand still knotted in the gown behind his back, shrugged and offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “My name is Kim—Harry Kim. I’m an ensign on the Starship Voyager. I was kidnapped from the Array, just like you.” He glanced around at the primitive room. “I don’t know where we are,” he had to admit.

She surged out of her bed with the power of a young lion, and set out across the room as though fixed on a purpose Kim could only surmise.

“What was Starfleet doing at the Array?” she demanded as she swept the closest table clear of debris.

“We were looking for you, actually.” Kim watched her prowl from bed to table, table to wall, and realized that what he’d taken for direction was nothing more than frustration screaming for a way to get out. “One minute, we were in the Badlands. The next …” He threw his arms wide for lack of any better way to express their predicament, and his gown flapped open again.

Just as inelegantly dressed as Kim, the Maquis seemed unmoved by his half-clad state. She ripped a drawer half off its runners and pawed through the clutter inside. “You mean you were trying to capture us.”

“Yeah.” Considering the results, Kim couldn’t help smiling dryly at the irony. “Consider yourself captured.” He made a show of patting around at his skimpy gown. “I know I have a phaser here somewhere.”

The Maquis glared at him before beelining for the only door. “I don’t find this at all amusing, Starfleet.”

He had a feeling she didn’t find much amusing. Too bad. She might almost be pretty if she ever smiled.

“There’s no point,” Kim said when she started tugging at the door handle with both hands. “It’s locked.” He’d already tested it twice before during one of his other wakeful phases.

She pushed him aside when he tried to move in front of her, and Kim could tell by the bunching of the muscles in her jaw that she had no intention of letting something like a locked door or some strange tumors keep her in confinement. “Hey …” He caught at her wrist as she pounded first her hands, then her elbows and feet against the door with increasing violence. “Hey! What’s that going to accomplish?”

She was stronger than he expected, and nearly slammed him to the ground when he suspected all she meant to do was shrug him away.

Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists to shower the door with a thunder of blows. “What are they doing to us?! What are these things growing on us?!”

Kim stayed very still on the ground, a little afraid to confront her.

“Do you want them to sedate you again?” he asked, very reasonably.

To his surprise, she jerked a look at him as though not realizing he was still there. Then anger, embarrassment, and anger again chased each other across her dark face, and she whirled away from the door to pace in time with her growling breaths. “You’re right, Starfleet,” she admitted in a lower but no less bitter tone. “It’s the Klingon half of me. I just can’t control it sometimes.”

Klingon. That explained both the strength and her exotically darkened features. Kim climbed carefully to his feet to follow her across the infirmary. “What’s your name, Maquis?”

She flicked a glare at him as though not sure if she was being made fun of, then seemed to dismiss the thought with a shake of her head. But she answered, “B’Elanna. B’Elanna Torres,” in a voice that was almost civil. She stopped to rend a sheet with her hands. “Have they told you anything?”

Kim thought about taking the fabric away from her, decided better the sheet’s destruction than his own. “Only that they’re called the Ocampa. I can tell you one other thing—their medicine is from the Dark Ages.” He boosted himself onto the bed across from her. “The nurse actually tried to bleed me this morning.”

That at least wrung a smile from her. Funny the kinds of things Klingons found amusing. He answered her with a friendly grin of his own, and let her savage the bedclothes for a few more minutes in companionable silence.

At first, Kim’s subconscious didn’t recognize the soft clunk behind him as a sound that should alarm him. He was too used to Starfleet doors that whisked open on a sigh to hear the subtle movement of latches and hinges. Torres, however, stiffened like an animal at the first quiet snickt! She dropped the sheet in a tangle of fraying thread, and Kim jumped down from the bed to grab her elbow when she tensed in readiness to run. Don’t! he mouthed, praying that her Klingon half would stop and listen to his human-inspired reason. God knew he couldn’t very well stop her if she decided to bolt.

Breathing hard, her teeth clenched, Torres nodded stiffly without taking her eyes off the door. A minor victory, but enough.

Tightening his fingers on her arm in combined encouragement and warning, Kim turned slowly to follow her gaze.

The Ocampa in the doorway stood with his arms folded around a bundle of gray-green fabric, his delicate lips stretched into a warm yet somehow infuriating smile. The doctor, Kim remembered.

Or, at least, the robed attendant whose gentle voice had first reached past Kim’s confusion to soothe him with uncertain words and stilted sentences. As though hearing Kim’s thoughts across the tense distance, the doctor found the ensign’s eyes and nodded warm acknowledgment, relaxing visibly. “I hope you’re feeling better,” he said aloud, his voice still slow and oddly inflected. “I know how frightening this must be for both of you.

I’ve brought you some clothes, if you’d care to change.” He extended the bundle of cloth in his hands, as though only just remembering he had it there.

Torres trembled with frustration under Kim’s grip. “Why are you holding us here?”

The Ocampa’s eyes flew wide with surprise. “You’re not prisoners. In fact—” He moved carefully forward, clothes still outstretched. “—we consider you honored guests. The Caretaker has sent you to us.” He looked meaningfully at Torres as he passed the new clothes across the bed between them. “As long as you’re not violent, you’re free to leave your quarters.”