The Star Trek: The Lost era: 2328-2346: The Art of the Impossible by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Author:Keith R. A. DeCandido
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

QO’NOS

Of all the mountain-climbing excursions Arn Teldin had taken on dozens of worlds throughout the quadrant, this trip to the Sutor mountains on Qo’noS had been the best yet.

The biggest problem with Cardassia II, where Teldin grew up, was its near total lack of mountains. Teldin had always felt the urge to climb, ever since he was a small boy trying to scale the tree in his backyard. The first time he went off-world was when his father’s business took him to Chin’toka III, to a city near the Likra mountain range. His father wouldn’t let him climb then—he was only seven—but Teldin studied climbing when he went to school, becoming a champion. He won dozens of competitions and left his mother living in constant fear for her son’s life.

With adulthood came responsibility, of course. It was all well and good to indulge in one’s fantasies as a youth, but Cardassia gave him a home and a life, and in return for that, he owed the state service. He became an archivist for the Central Command library, soon rising to the position of chief archivist. Eventually, after a long and distinguished career during which he revolutionized Central Command’s record-keeping abilities, he retired, determined to spend the rest of his life traveling the galaxy and climbing mountains.

He’d climbed peaks all over Cardassian space and on several Federation worlds. The trip to Qo’noS had been expensive, but worth it. Klingons, for all their peculiarities, had a fondness for preservation of nature, so the wildnerness of Sutor was left mostly untouched by the ravages of industry and technology. It had been the purest climb he’d had since his school days.

Even as he waited for the transport that would take him back to the First City, where he would find lodgings before heading back home to Cardassia in the morning, he missed the sensation of rock under his hands, the searing cold air slicing into his lungs, the feel of the wind through his white hair—more, he missed the sound of the wind. When the transport arrived, he planned to compose a letter to his mother—still alive, and well cared for by the state—telling her of the adventure. His mother had long since given up being worried about her son’s jaunts across the galaxy. Whether or not it was old age or just resignation to the inevitable, she at least no longer tried to talk him out of it, and pretended to enjoy hearing about his adventures.

It was only after he’d been at the kiosk for fifteen minutes that he noticed the odd looks he was getting from the Klingons around him.

Teldin had never given much thought to Klingons. Until coming to Qo’noS, he’d never even met one. He didn’t like the way they all tended to snarl and bare their teeth and shout. But then, they probably didn’t like how quiet and unassuming Teldin himself was, so he figured it all balanced out. Besides, they let him climb their mountain, and he couldn’t bring himself to be too badly disposed toward them.

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