Gateways 2 (Challenger) by Diane Carey

Author:Diane Carey [Carey, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Science fiction; American, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Adventure, High Tech, Media Tie-In, Star Trek fiction
ISBN: 9780743418553
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2001-07-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

"They live in a metal desert."

A cryptic sentence. Savannah Ring knew what she was saying and waited for Nick Keller to see the image in his mind before she went on.

He knew she was painting a picture in his mind on purpose with her silence. They had known each other long enough for her to give him a panorama with one word.

The small sickbay was a cloistered area. Savannah had it pretty much to herself most of the time. A few crewmen were trained in emergency medical treatment, but only as a hobby.

Generally, she thrived in solitude. Unconscious patients or the cooperative dearly departed were preferred customers.

She had come back with a cornucopia of new information. Tyce and Manteo had struck gold on the biological data, and Savannah herself had stumbled onto a loaded databank no mistake. She'd brought back a history of the Living, as told by the Living.

Not unusual, really, for people to stock their ships with information about themselves and their homeworlds. Everybody in the Federation did it. The unusual part had to do with how much she could decipher, and how quickly. She'd sprayed Keller's burned hands with a quickie treatment right there on the bridge, then vanished to sickbay to analyze her findings and called Keller in record time.

Now he was down here, stalking the diagnostic couch while she sat upon the couch with her legs folded like a kid and twitched to tell what she knew.

"It's a planet virtually made of ores and natural alloys," she launched. "Every kind of compressed compound or base ore you can imagine, just like the grave ship. We wondered why there's nothing but metal on Pompeii, even the things that look like planets and moss it's because they don't have anything else to build with. They built the insides of that ship to look like the place they think they came from. Someplace here."

"Where here? Which planets?"

"No idea. They don't use names for places. Space is just 'outside.' There's no sign of charting or tracking. They don't know where they're going. They came from someplace other than the planet they've been living on for generations. And it's been a fight to live there."

Relieved that she'd found so much, yet also overwhelmed, Keller folded his arms to hold in the rising fears. "How'd you hammer this out so fast?"

Perhaps he secretly hoped she was wrong, making mistakes, not translating correctly.

Savannah read his mind and gave him the short answer. "Normally, even with computer help, it would take a couple of days to translate and decipher a completely alien language, but it didn't. My tricorder recognized this even without the mainframe tie-in. The Living language is a mixture."

"Of Blood and Kauld, I'll bet."

She surveyed him, curious and entertained. "How d'you know?"

He wasn't sure how he knew. In a Zane-like strike of intuition, he tugged on the only thread he had.

"The mummy the one who looks like Shucorion it's some kind of binding tie. I don't believe in coincidences or long-lost twins or magical doubles.

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