Mosaic (25 page)

essentially as a mobile tricorder, from the first day until

now. It was a relief to get away from him and accompany

Admiral Paris on this short mission to one of the moons of

Urtea II, where They had mounted a sensor array three

months earlier. There should now be valuable records of the

K.havior of extragalactic neutron stars and nonbaryonic

matter, two major components of the galaxy's distant halo.

"Hear much from your father?"

ventured the admiral once they were underway.

"Actually not, sir. He sent me a subspace message a couple

of months ago, but he couldn't really tell me what he was

doing." As usual, thought Kathryn. "He looked tired. He

must be working hard."

"I wouldn't doubt it." There was a silence between them,

for talk of her father always raised the specter of

Cardassia, and hence the questions that remained unanswered

about their own mission-questions that couldn't even be

posed.

To her relief, Kathryn had found that that other, covert,

mission might as well not have existed. She was unaware of

the ship's doing anything except surveying the galactic rim

and amassing data on halo objects. If there was

ini"ormation gathering going on at the same time, she was

gratefully ignorant of it.

"I got a communication from my son Tom the other day,"

continued Paris. A smile of what could only be called

paternal pride played on his mouth.

"He won the aeroshuttle derby at his school.

Set a record for the course." "You must be proud."

"I knew from the time he was a toddler that he'd be a

pilot. I'd take him with me on routine flights, and I 187

remember from the time he was two he was fascinated by the

controls. He'd sit and watch me work them and not move for

hours. He was like a little adult, studying and learning.

When he was five he asked if he could try the simulator."

Admiral Paris shook his head and smiled at the memory. "It

was all I could do not to laugh. Put a five-year-old in a

simulator? How could he possibly handle it? Well, I asked

him a few questions and damned if he didn't know all the

answers. So we went to the Academy one weekend and we fired

up the beginning flight program on the simulator."

The admiral stared out the window as though to recapture

that long-ago moment. "It was amazing.

Here was this little mite of a thing handling that flight

program as though he were an Academy cadet. The next day I

brought some friends along and let them watch, because I

knew no one would believe me if I told them a kid that age

could handle a simulator." He chuckled briefly at the

memory. "They said I must've programmed an autopilot

sequence and just let Tom sit there and pretend. But of

course they checked and saw that wasn't true."

"How old is he now, sir?"

"Fifteen. Already been accepted for admission to the

Academy when he graduates." Kathryn thought she had never

heard such naked pride in a parent before. She envied this

young Tom Paris, who had a father that gloried so in his

accomplishments. She doubted that her father ever regaled

his cohorts with stories of her achievements. "We're

approaching the upper atmosphere of the moon, sir," she

said, reading from her instruments. "Preparing landing

sequence." Then she gasped as she saw something else on the

sensors and heard the admiral grunt as he noticed the same

thing.

"There's a ship behind the limb of the moon," she said

automatically, knowing he was well aware of it.

He was already keying controls, swinging the shuttle in an

arc to return to the Icarus. "I don't recognize the

signature," she began, but he interrupted brusquely.

"That's a Cardassian ship, Ensign."

A cold knot formed in her stomach. This wasn't Cardassian

territory. What was it doing here?

"Should I alert the ship?" "Maintain communications

silence. It's possible they're unaware of the Icarus. I'd

like to keep it that way."

Kathryn was aware that he was running a fairly complicated

series of evasive maneuvers. What was he anticipating? She

willed herself to remain calm, and focused on the sensors,

which showed that a massive ship was rounding the limb of

the moon. In seconds it would be within eyesight. The

shuttle was dancing in space, maneuvering gracefully but

unpredictably, when the Cardassian ship appeared. It was

huge, roughly arrow-shaped, with a variety of weapons

systems prominently displayed along its hull. Kathryn felt

her heart hammering, but her mind was focused and her hands

on the controls were steady.

A deep violet tractoring beam suddenly emanated from the

Cardassian ship, and Kathryn realized the admiral had been

anticipating this; his maneuvers were an effort to keep

them from locking on. He glanced over at her, and his grave

eyes were worried. "This may get unpleasant for us,

Ensign," he said. "Do your best, but don't be unnecessarily

heroic." She didn't know what he meant.

For a few minutes he was able to avoid the tractor, but as

they both knew, it was only a delaying tactic. Eventually

the larger ship with its fat tractor beam would ensnare

them-and that's exactly what happened, with a bonejarring

snap that tossed them around like toys. Kathryn's 189

head bounced off the console; lights flared in her head, a

brief but brilliant display that she barely registered

before everything went black.

I did it, Daddy, she was saying, 1 derived the distance

formula. She kept saying it over and over, but her father

wouldn't look at her; he just kept his eyes straight ahead,

not listening. She said it louder, trying to break through

to him, yelling in her urgency to get him to turn and look

at her. I solved the problem, I know how to derive the

distance formula! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy-The sound of her own groan pulled her to consciousness,

and her father faded; she tried to get him back but the

moment had slipped away.

Now she was aware only of cold and dampness, and a dull

pain in her head. She reached to touch it and encountered a

thick crust of dried blood. Where was she? She should be on

board the Icarus, but what she felt beneath her was soggy

earth. A holodeck program? She struggled to make sense of

the situation.

She pulled herself to a sitting position and her head

erupted in pain. She steeled herself, waiting for it to

abate, and gradually began to assess her situation.

She could see nothing. Wherever she was, it was black as

pitch. She reached out and patted the earth in front of

her; it was dank and smelled of peat. She extended the

range of her patting and quickly encountered a barrier of

cold metal. Moving to her right, she followed the wall

until it abutted with another at right angles; in this

fashion she proceeded until she determined she was in an

enclosure approximately a meter and a half square. And less

than that tall. She couldn't stand up, could barely sit

upright without her head touching the ceiling.

And she could only lie down curled into a ball; the pen

wouldn't allow her to stretch out. The damp ground had

absorbed heat from her body, and

cold seemed to have penetrated into her bone marrow.

Was she in danger of hypothermia? She began rubbing her

legs and arms briskly, trying to warm them up.

What had happened? Her last memory was of being on the

Icarus, working with a padd . . . Justin Tighe was there,

cold and intimidating . . .

Wait. The shuttle . . . Admiral Paris .

. . they were on their way to check a sensor array .

. . and then . . .

A sudden sound, and an aperture opened in the darkness,

flooding the enclosure with bright light that knifed into

her eyes like ice picks. She covered them with her hands as

a man's voice said, "Please, my dear, come out and join

us."

Head down, eyes still shut, she crawled toward the light.

She could feel warmth beyond the opening, a welcoming

sensation that momentarily lifted her spirits.

A strong arm took hers and helped her to her feet, but she

couldn't stand; her legs buckled into the fetal position

they'd held for so long. She thought of newborn animals,

wobbly and unstable, trying to get to their feet. The

strong arms held her firmly until her legs were steady, and

then she looked up, still squinting in the harsh light,

into the face of an alien.

He was of a species she'd never seen. He was quite tall

and rather thin; his face and neck were corded with

cartilage. It was an imposing presence, but the eyes that

peered at her were kind. "I am Gul Camet," he said, and his

voice was rich and pleasant. Kathryn began to relax

somewhat.

"Please accept my apologies for the way you've been

treated. I assumed my men had arranged quarters for you,

and then I discovered you'd been treated like a common

criminal. I assure you they will be reprimanded." The tall

man inspected her head wound carefully. "This should be

treated at once.

Please, come with me."

Grateful, she followed him from the brightly lit courtyard

of stone into which she had emerged from her box, down a

corridor softly glowing with muted light, and into a

somewhat grand chamber with low vaulted ceilings and ornate

designs on the walls. A table and two chairs were its only

furnishings.

Gul Camet pushed some controls on the table and gestured

her to sit. "The physician will be here right away. How are

you feeling?" "I'm . . . not sure. Cold. My head hurts."

"You may have suffered a mild concussion. The physician

will treat you. Do you remember how you were injured?"

Kathryn struggled to piece together the images in her

memory. "I was in a shuttle . . . with the admiral . . ."

Suddenly she remembered Admiral Paris and became alarmed.

"Where is he? Where's the admiral?" "Your companion? I'm

afraid he was more seriously injured than you. He is in a

hospital facility, but he should recover completely."

Kathryn was staring at him. She had remembered the final

moments before the blackout. "You're Cardassian," she said

softly. "Yes," smiled Camet, "and you are human. Our

species haven't had much interaction. I wish this one

hadn't been so unpleasant for you. Why were you on one of

our moons?"

Kathryn's head was clearing quickly. The Cardassian ship,

the tractor beam, the admiral's final cryptic admonition-they were prisoners, no doubt about it, regardless of what

this sleek and charming Gul had to say. "I wasn't aware it

was yours. In fact, I'm sure it's in Federation territory."

"Was in Federation territory. We have annexed it."

"I'm not sure I understand how you can annex what is not

yours." "It's quite simple. You take it."

His eyes were not so kind now, she noted, and had become

lidded, like a snake's. "Now, once more-what were you doing

there?"

"My name is Kathryn Janeway. I'm a Starfleet ensign and a

member of the United Federation of Planets."

Camet was waving off her words with a gesture of disdain

and tedium. "Please, my dear, don't posture with me. If I

choose, you will tell me what you were doing on our moon.

You will tell me anything I ask, you will betray your

mother, your father, your friends, and beg to betray others

if I will just stop hurting you. That would be just before

you went insane." He eyed her briefly to see how she

responded to this statement. Kathryn did her best to be

perfectly neutral.

"But I don't want to do that. You're quite young, quite

lovely. And you seem intelligent. So I hope you'll see the

wisdom of cooperation. After all, if you had a legitimate

purpose on the moon, I have no quarrel with you. I

understand that the Federation was unaware of our recent

annexation."

Kathryn considered his statement. It sounded utterly

reasonable-a tactic, she knew, of a skilled interrogator.

On the other hand, she knew her heroic stand was, as he

said, impossible to maintain, and she remembered the

admiral's admonition as they were captured. Best to keep

this Gul talking. "We are on a scientific expedition,

studying massive compact halo objects. We established a

sensor array on that moon two mons hs ago and we were

returning to collect data."

"Ah. A mission of scientific endeavor."

"Exactly."

The door opened and another Cardassian man entered with a

satchel. Gul Camet instructed him to treat her injury, and

the man began to clean the wound; his touch was gentle and

experienced. "In that case, Ensign Kathryn Janeway of the

United Federation of Planets, why were there extremely

sophisticated surveillance devices installed in that

array?"

Kathryn wished that she knew nothing about the other

mission of the Icarus, so that her innocence would be real,

not feigned. "There weren't. You must be mistaking elements