Whispers in the Dark

[Mr. Atoz]

WHISPERS IN THE DARK >>>

[This is the vampire story I said I was working on. It's probably not one of my best efforts, but it's not bad. Helpful comments are always appreciated, of course.]


"Captain's log, Stardate 52072.6: During our survey of system Zeus Alpha-107, the Odysseus unexpectedly developed a misalignment in its deflector grid which blew one of our shield generators. While Chief Engineer Vespis completes repairs, we are remaining in orbit around the fourth planet, which has been unofficially renamed Erewhon by some of the junior officers. "

As Captain Atoz emerged from a status update meeting in Engineering, the starship Odysseus struck him as being a little too quiet. His footsteps almost seemed to echo down the empty corridors, and when he arrived at the Deck 7 Mess Hall, he found it virtually deserted, even though it was normally the peak dinner hour. Lieutenant Commander Weir was sitting alone, reading from a data padd held in one hand while eating with the other. She glanced up with a welcoming nod and a smile as he set his tray down across from her. "Diane," said Atoz, looking around at the ranks of unoccupied tables, "is everyone down on shore leave?"

"It certainly seems that way, sir," she replied with a sardonic grin, putting down her padd. "Everyone who's not on duty, that is. Well, you did authorize it."

He sat down and sorted out his cutlery. After a solid month of stellar mapping and planetary surveys, he had felt that the crew deserved a break. "I know, but it's a completely undeveloped planet. There are no facilities at all."

"It's my experience, sir," Weir said, smiling rather delicately, "that young people don't really need that many facilities to have a good time. They only need one another, if you know what I mean."

Atoz spread his napkin and contemplated his dinner. "Ah, yes. Young people."

"Don't tell me, sir," said Weir, raising one eyebrow knowingly. "At that age, you were the serious young science officer who never had time to party. You spent all your off duty time studying."

"It pains me to have to admit it," said Atoz, picking up his fork, "but yes, that's about the size of it."

"Your secret is safe with me, sir."

Atoz opened his mouth to reply, but just then the entire room suddenly seemed to tilt abruptly to one side. Weir was pitched across the table before she could stop herself, and together the two of them tumbled dizzily across the trembling, vibrating deck. "What was that?" she gasped.

"I've never--" Atoz started to say, but now the room was tilting back in the opposite direction. This time they were prepared. Although the gravity plates in the deck held them in place, they could feel the churning disorientation in their inner ears. Then the feeling passed as abruptly as it had begun. "Bridge! What's going on?" Atoz said, slapping his comm badge.

For some reason, there was a hesitant pause from Lieutenant Capek, the duty officer. Then his precise Czech accent sounded puzzled. "What do you mean, Captain?"

"It felt like some kind of gravitational turbulence," said Weir quietly, "but that's impossible."

"We were at 2,000 kilometers last time I checked," Atoz agreed. Then, into his comm badge, he said, "I mean whatever made the ship tremble just a moment ago."

"I don't know what you mean, sir," Capek insisted. "Everything is all quiet up here."

[Mr. Atoz]

The turbolift door slid open with a subtle hiss, allowing Atoz and Weir to stride quickly onto the Bridge. Weir immediately crossed to the Sciences station, while Atoz went straight to Tactical, where the ensign at the console was just finishing up a routine security sweep. Capek rose hastily from the command chair. "I had Mr. Attenborough run a check anyway, Captain," the duty officer said. "Just to be certain."

"Nothing, sir," said Attenborough, pointing to the security display.

Atoz could see that for himself. Everything appeared perfectly normal. The ship was placidly in orbit; the planet was as stable as ever. He glanced over at Weir, who merely shook her head in confirmation that nothing was amiss. Atoz took a deep breath. What he was worried about now was his shore party on the planet. Any planetary disturbance violent enough to shake the ship in orbit must have killed them all instantly. "Isn't it about time for the First Officer to check in?" he said.

"Actually he is a little bit overdue, sir," Capek replied. "Shall I... ?"

"Please do. Let's have it on screen."

Ensign T'Pana, seated at the Ops station, rapidly ran her slender fingers over the controls, "Communications frequencies open, sir."

The main viewscreen of the bridge abruptly showed them a tropical beach, just as dusk was falling The sun had just set, making the sky a royal blue in color with streaks of salmon pink clouds and a dozen or so bright, early stars. Spaced along the beach were half a dozen small bonfires, attended by young people of both sexes -- laughing, dancing and enjoying music of various kinds. It looked like over half the crew. "Fawkes? Are you there?" Atoz said, somewhat impatiently.

"Oh hello, Captain," said an extremely attractive young woman, coming into view and grinning at him. "Mister Fawkes is around here somewhere, sir. He just asked me to watch the comm link for a minute."

"Well, I can see that you're having a good time, ensign," said Atoz. Penner was dressed in a bikini top and a pair of really tight shorts, her long blonde hair streaming freely down around her bare shoulders. In one hand she was holding up the communicator, while her other hand was occupied touching and caressing a young man who was standing immediately behind her with both arms wrapped rather intimately around her waist.

"Oh, yes sir!" she said. "We're having a blast, aren't we, Buckaroo?" This last statement was addressed to the boy, whom Atoz recognized as impulse engineer Lt. (j.g.) Peter Buckman. "I can find Mr. Fawkes if you want, sir."

Atoz was suddenly aware of Weir standing beside him, looking over his shoulder at the screen. "No, ensign," he said. "That won't be necessary. As long as everything is all right..."

"Everything's great, Captain!" said Penner, giggling at something the boy was doing.

"Very good. I'll let you get back to it, then. Odysseus out." Atoz nodded for T'Pana to close the link.

"Captain," said Weir, doing a quick sweep of his chest with her tricorder, "I'm reading some strange residual ionization." She paused and scanned herself. "On both of us."

"So whatever happened in the Mess Hall only happened to the two of us?"

"I'd say it's likely, sir," the science officer replied. "It doesn't seem to be a type of energy I recognize. The diagnostic scanners in Sickbay would be able to tell us more."

Atoz nodded. "Carry on, Mr. Capek," he said, as they both stepped into the turbolift.

The moment the turbolift doors closed behind them, all the lights went out, plunging the two of them into absolute darkness. There was a relatively brief period of dizziness as they reached for one another to get their balance. When the light did return, it was the pale, pearly radiance of two smallish moons high overhead, revealing that they were no longer in the turbolift but standing on a sand dune underneath a starry night sky.

[Mr. Atoz]

"That was a matter transference beam," said Weir, dazedly. They were overlooking a vast desert which stretched out of sight in all directions. Two or three miles away in the direction they had originally been facing was a slightly darker patch, representing trees or perhaps an oasis. Apart from the night wind sighing over the dunes, there was no sound.

Atoz pressed his comm badge. "Atoz to Bridge. Atoz to Odysseus. Do you hear me?" There was nothing in reply, not even the communications carrier wave. "Could this be the holodeck?" he asked, his mind seeking logical solutions by force of habit. When Weir didn't answer, he turned. "Diane?"

"Sorry, sir," she said, shaking herself out of her daze and pressing buttons on her tricorder. "I'm not detecting holoemitters or power sources of any kind. Wherever we are, it's real."

Atoz pointed upwards at the two moons. "We can't be on 107-IV, because it only has one satellite."

"But that's the Amalthea cluster," added Weir, indicating a distinctive nearby pattern of stars. "We're breathing, so it's obviously a class M planet. This must be ZA-89-III. We surveyed it three weeks ago."

"I remember," said Atoz. "A pre-scientific society roughly comparable to the Dark Ages on Earth. Judged no reason for contact."

"So we know how we got here and where we are..."

"The only question left is Why? Who's responsible for bringing us here?"

An eerie wailing sound suddenly came out of the darkness. It rose to a high pitch like the wind, grating on Atoz' nerves and making the hairs on his neck stand upright with fear. Weir was obviously affected as well – she moved closer to him, her eyes wide with alarm. "It's... coming from there," she stammered, pointing wildly into the moonlit desert. Then she whirled around, unsure of the direction.

"There may be more than one," said Atoz, backing away, uncomfortably aware that neither of them had a phaser. Grabbing her hand, he plunged down the hillside and began running flat out towards the oasis. He could hear the science officer breathing hard to keep up as the howling noises chased them, whatever was making them still unseen.

Once they reached the dappled shadows underneath the vaguely palm-like trees, the sounds seemed to drop behind. Atoz and Weir stopped to catch their breath, not far from a small, stone house. Suddenly several figures leaped upon them out of the dark. Atoz saw two spear points thrusting towards his face. Instinctively he grabbed at the first one he could reach, ducking underneath and sharply twisting the haft until its owner lost his balance and went sprawling on the ground. He spun the spear around, parrying the spear of the second man, and just then a heavy mace came from out of nowhere and caught him right across the shoulder blades.

"Captain!" Weir cried out in alarm as Atoz dropped his weapon and fell flat on his face in the sand.

"Halt, sir!" said a male voice. "Explain yourself!" It was the man with the mace, who was now holding a wicked-looking dagger pointed at Weir's throat. The man with the spear stood with the point thrust into Atoz' back, ready to drive it home if he tried to get up. The first man, scrambling to his feet, fetched a lantern from somewhere and held it aloft so that they could see one another.

It was a party of four humanoids – three male and one female who stood peering out from the doorway of the stone house. They had tanned olive-colored skin and slanting eyes – all of them dressed in the dusty, loose-fitting garments with either hoods or hats to ward off the daytime sun. The one who spoke was obviously the leader, set apart by the richness of his costume. Atoz was astonished to realize that he could understand him, although he wasn't wearing a Universal Translator. "I say Explain your presence here!" the leader repeated. "Are ye spirits? Are ye Ghuls?"

Atoz hesitated. There was the Prime Directive to consider, which discouraged interference with an undeveloped civilization. On the other hand, until they figured out how to get back to the ship, his and Weir's survival might well depend upon the goodwill of these natives. "We are simple travelers, sir," he said. "We didn't mean to alarm you."

"Travelers? Without baggage? Where are your neroghs, your riding animals? Eh?"

Atoz risked a look at Weir -- held tightly against the man's chest with that knife at her throat, she seemed unhurt but dared not make a sound. "We... lost them," he said lamely. "There was a storm..."

The man grunted as he thought this over. "You don't sound like one of the Ancient Ones to me," he said, apparently with great reluctance. Releasing his grip on Weir, he sheathed his knife and gave a nod to the man with the spear, who darted off into the night again. "I am Zagir. My wife, Ziphata."

The female stepped out of the doorway and made a little bow to the two of them. "If they be not the Ancient Ones, my husband," she said, "should we not retire within? The dark has eyes." As if to underscore her words, the spooky wailing sound briefly returned. Only one this time, it rose to an unnerving peak and then faded away. The man holding the lantern -- who couldn't have been more than fifteen years old, now that Atoz had a good look at him – paused to wait for Zagir's confirming nod and led the way indoors.

***

The house was an ancient structure made of heavy stones, a few of which were crumbling with age. The roof was dried mud plaster over a wooden framework, fallen in some places. Inside was just one room. There were no ornaments, so it was obviously not their home, only a place where they had temporarily set up housekeeping. A sturdy table stood in the center, which held among other things a metal brazier with glowing wood embers. Traveling bags had been arranged in makeshift beds along the walls. "Jabik," Zagir said to the boy as he set down the lantern, "go and see what keeps Korek so long."

Weir guided Atoz to the light and insisted upon removing the top half of his uniform so that she could look at his injury. "It's bruised, sir," she said, tenderly touching his bare, aching back, "but it doesn't look serious." It was evident from the look that passed between them that she would like to speak to him alone, but Ziphata was hovering around, seemingly fascinated by Weir's short brunette hair. Her own indigo-colored hair, when she removed her head scarf, was long, arranged in rope-like coils.

Rummaging around their baggage, Ziphata produced two lumps of hard bread and a bowl of clear, cool water. Weir looked at the water as if she were worried about it's purity, but Ziphata assured her, "Have no fears. It is from a deep well, sweet and cold." There didn't seem to be much choice. While Atoz and Weir ate and drank, Zagir sat near the open doorway, watching them intently as if he still hadn't made up his mind to trust them yet.

"I would know more of you, Traveler," he said. "Your raiment is very strange, and this place is far off the customary trade routes."

Atoz tried to think of something neutral to say. "My name is Atoz, My companion is Diane. We were heading for... for the coast when we became lost. Where is this place?"

Zagir gave a mirthless laugh, shaking his head. "This place is Death, oh Traveler Atoz. Beyond yonder hill lies the ruins of Ra-jumar!"

It couldn't have been plainer that Zagir expected him to react with surprise at the very least, so Atoz obliged him. "I see," he said. "What brings you to this place of Death, my friend Zagir?"

"It may be a ruin," the man replied, "inhabited only by lizards and ghosts, but treasures lie beneath the ground, for the man who does not fear the legends of the Ancient Ones. I come each season to glean what I may – trinkets, or perhaps scrolls of lore. My wife reads the words of the long dead race, after a fashion."

"You're a scholar then?" said Weir, smiling amiably at Ziphata.

The woman lowered her face modestly. "I am a woman who stumbles through the writing of her betters. I was schooled in the convent of Ko-batelk." Then, as if eager to change the subject, she bustled around, digging up extra blankets. "Here, Diane. You and your husband may sleep together in this corner."

"But we're not--" Weir looked up sharply, about to correct her mistake, but caught Atoz' eye. With a slight flush reddening her cheek, she nodded once, decisively. "Thank you, Ziphata. We both thank you."

"I have spare garments as well," the other woman added quietly, with a disapproving look at Weir's unisex Starfleet uniform.

As the women busied themselves, Atoz turned to Zagir. "Who are the other two men?" he asked.

Zagir leaned back, resting against the doorpost. "Korek is my cousin. Jabik is an orphan we took in. My wife is very--" He was interrupted by a scream from the boy outside. He immediately snatched up his mace and ran out into the dark. Atoz darted a glance at the two women, motioning them to stay put, then followed Zagir.

Behind the house was roped off enclosure where three riding animals had been tethered. In the dark, they were nothing but vaguely camel-like shapes. And besides, his attention was drawn to the the boy Jabik, who was standing over the prone body of Korek. Zagir was kneeling beside him. "Dead," he pronounced, standing up to peer about warily at the darkness. "And no wound, no mark on him. It seems the legends are true, after all."

"What legends?" said Atoz, examining the body as well as he could in the dark. He could detect no pulse or respiration.

"The Ancient Ones, said to inhabit the ruins," said Zagir grimly. "Spirits who drain the life from the living, Traveler Atoz. The Whisperers in the Dark."

[Mr. Atoz]

Lieutenant Capek had rarely seen First Officer Fawkes look happy, but tonight he looked even less happy than usual. "What do you mean, the Captain's missing?"

"The Captain and the Science Officer, sir," Capek replied, standing in front of the command chair and addressing the viewscreen. "An hour ago, they stepped into the turbolift, and now I don't know where they are."

"You searched for them, of course?"

"Of course, Commander," the Czech replied. "I did that before I bothered you with it."

"All right. Alert the transporter room. I'll beam up immediately." Turning, Fawkes almost ran into Lt. Rosh, the ship's Eminian Chief of Security. "Trouble upstairs," he said, thinking fast as he looked around at the party which still going on. "Who can you leave in charge down here?"

"Blackadar is here," said Rosh. "But she is officially off duty."

"Put her back on duty," said Fawkes.

***

Brought inside to the light, the dead body revealed little else. The face was marred by faint bruises, rather ring-shaped and roughly an inch or so in diameter. "You're right, there are no wounds," said Atoz, giving it a thorough tactile examination. "Not even a puncture to indicate he was bitten by a venomous animal. But he does seem to have lost a lot of blood, just the same..."

"There are no bruises on his arms," said Weir quietly, clearly wishing that she could use her tricorder. "No defensive wounds. His muscles aren't bunched or stiff. It doesn't look like he struggled at all. He just... died."

"The Ancient Ones are said to possess supernatural strength and speed," said Zagir grimly, as behind him Jabik used a hatchet to whittle a sturdy stick of firewood to a point. "They overpower their victims and draw out the soul through the nostrils."

"What is Jabik doing?" asked Weir.

Zagir hesitated to answer until the boy had handed him two stakes. "A man slain by the vampire must be pierced through the lungs and burned as soon as possible, lest he rise again as a vampire himself."

"Surely you don't believe that?"

"It is the legend," said Zagir. "I did not believe the Ancient Ones existed at all, until I saw Korek with my own eyes. What would you have me do?"

"I have seen it," said Jabik suddenly, as Ziphata put her arms around his shoulders to calm him. "My father, dead and buried these ten years past. But I saw him, Zagir! I saw him last night, remember? Stalking me as a herpel stalks his prey!"

"Hush, child," the man said.

"Did you see this, Zagir?" asked Atoz.

"I saw a shape," the man admitted, "which fled as I approached. The boy says it was his father. I had set it down as a dream, but now I am not so certain..."

Atoz saw that it was pointless to argue, so he volunteered to help with the grisly business. Zagir solemnly gave him the curved short sword which had belonged to Korek. Leaving Jabik on guard in the doorway of the house with his spear, Zagir carried Korek's body outside and drove the two stakes into his lungs with mighty blows from his mace. Then the two of them arranged the corpse – the limbs still curiously flaccid, Atoz couldn't help noticing – and wrapped it in a blanket, tying it securely with cords. Zagir said a prayer, and together they hoisted it onto the roof of the house, where the scavengers couldn't get at it.

They returned to the house, bringing the three riding animals inside with them, where Zagir announced that the three men would take turns on watch during the night. He himself would stand guard first. Ziphata and Jabik wrapped themselves in blankets and curled up into their respective corners, leaving the remaining corner for Atoz and Weir.

Atoz lay down and got as comfortable as he could on the sleeping mat. Weir, having politely declined Ziphata's offer of her spare clothing, stood hesitating uneasily at the sleeping arrangements. "We don't have much choice, commander," the captain whispered, gesturing for her to join him. "The alternative is for one of us to sleep on the ground. Besides..." he added, giving a meaningful look at Zagir's silhouette in the doorway, "...it may be out only chance to talk."

The science officer realized that, logically, their best chance of doing so without being overheard was by falling in with the pretense of being a married couple and huddling close as if engaging in "pillow talk". Oddly enough, the fact that she personally felt some attraction for the Captain actually made the situation even more difficult. Trying not to meet his eyes, she sat down next to him, then awkwardly eased herself into his arms.

After a few minutes, Weir's self-consciousness had abated a little. "Captain?" she whispered. "My specialty is astrophysics, not exobiology. Can there really be such things as... as vampires?"

"We've often speculated about that," he replied, careful to keep his hands above her waist. "It's possible some alien creature might approximate some of the characteristics."

"There are the coherent gaseous organisms of the Tycho star group," she agreed, "which absorb hemoglobin from their victims through direct contact with the skin."

"True," he said. "But the riding animals would have made an alarm if something like that had attacked Korek. And this business about Jabik's father... How could it bring back someone who's dead?"

"I wish I could have used my tricorder," she whispered. "What if Korek wasn't really dead at all? Just paralyzed or something? And now..."

"Now he's dead for certain, with two stakes in his lungs," said Atoz, drawing his arms more tightly around Weir to stop her from shivering. "Don't blame yourself for that. Even if you could have scanned him, do you think Zagir would understand a tricorder? Do you think he would just take your word for it?"

"No, sir. I suppose not." With a heavy sigh, she laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes. Their heartbeats very soon became synchronized. Her body was soft and warm in his arms, her breathing so slow and deep that Atoz thought she was asleep. "This is all so bewildering," she whispered suddenly. "I'm still wondering how we got here. And how it is we can even understand them without a translator. If it weren't so horrifying, I'd think this was all a dream."

[Okay, that's about the first half. I'll post the other half next week.]

[Mr. Atoz]

"What's this I hear about Weir and the Captain being missing?" said Dr. Pierce, charging onto the bridge wearing shorts, a loud flowered shirt and lei around his neck.

"We're working on it, doctor," said Fawkes calmly, barely looking up at his strange attire. "Mister Rosh?"

"Internal scans are negative," said the Security Officer. "According to the computer, neither the Captain nor Science Officer has beamed down. All shuttlecraft and all environment suits are accounted for. None of the airlocks have been opened in the past twelve hours."

"What are you talking about?" said Pierce. "They can't have just vanished!"

"Commander," said Capek, standing over the Sciences station. "I was using external sensors to scan the immediate area around the ship, and I'm picking up an unusual ionization reading."

Rosh pushed buttons on his Tactical console. "I do not... Yes, there it is. Extremely faint."

"The particle concentration is falling away, Commander," said Capek, still peering at the sensor display. "No... there it is again, bearing 349 mark 94. The distribution curve is geometric. It's almost like trail/."

Fawkes strode down towards the helmsman's station, staring fixedly at the stars on the main viewscreen. "Ensign Nickel, prepare to leave orbit."

"Wait a minute," demanded Pierce. "Are you out of your head?"

The First Officer ignored him. "Bridge to Engineering. How is our deflector grid?"

"Still one or two adjustments to make," Vespis replied, as her blue Andorian face appeared on the main view screen. "Is that you, Papa? Weren't you on shore leave?"

"Can we travel on impulse?"

"Yeah, I suppose," the engineer replied, her antennae waving lazily as she raised one eyebrow. "As long as it's not more than half speed. What are you in such a hurry about?"

"Let's get something straight," said Pierce, grabbing Fawkes' arm. "You don't think this ionization has something to do with their disappearance, do you?"

"Have you a better idea?" said Fawkes. "They're not on the ship. They can't have left by any conventional means. This is the only thing left." The doctor made a skeptical face, but he didn't say anything more.

***

The voices were whispering, tugging at Atoz' mind -- soft, coaxing, beguiling. In his dream, Weir was dressed like a harem girl, her body rather sketchily veiled in semi-transparent silk. "Come with us. Ride the winds of the Night. Come..." Atoz reached out to embrace her, and her flimsy costume began to unravel, snatched away by the night wind...

He woke up suddenly, feeling Ziphata shaking him. "Awake! Jabik is gone."

Weir was sitting up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "When?"

"I do not know," the other woman fretted, holding the lantern with trembling hands. "It could not have been long. Oh, please, friend Atoz..."

Atoz scrambled to his feet and darted outside, where he found Zagir with his mace. The moons had moved slowly across the sky, but the larger of the two was still directly overhead, lighting the oasis. The other man paused just long enough to make sure that Atoz was with him, then ran off into the darkness. Atoz ran after him.

Zagir first made for the well, a deep pit lined with a ring of stones approximately two to three feet high. A crude derrick made of wooden poles was rigged the over opening for drawing water. In the dark, the structure looked like a skeletal finger, pointing upwards toward the moon. Jabik's spear was leaning against the upright supports, but there was no other sign of him. "I left a boy on watch!" the man hissed angrily. "For a single hour, I told him, then he was to wake you..."

"Blaming yourself won't get him back," said Atoz, picking up the spear. "Let's concentrate on finding him. The Ancient Ones live in the ruins, right? Which way?"

Zagir raced off through the shadows cast by the trees. In a matter of seconds, the two of them had left the oasis behind, scrambling over and around partial walls of fallen masonry, some half-buried by drifting sand. A tall, humanoid figure was standing a few meters away, partly illuminated by the moon against the hillside. It was still, as if waiting for them to pass it by, and it was carrying Jabik. As they approached, the creature whirled and let out a savage hiss. Zagir froze in his tracks, but Atoz charged down upon it with Jabik's spear.

He aimed his thrust high to minimize the chance of hitting the boy, but the creature ducked. As the point of the spear went past its shoulder, it dropped Jabik and turned upon Atoz. Moving with horrifying speed, it slapped the weapon from his hands and slammed him against the crumbling brick wall, at the same time grabbing his throat and squeezing the breath out of him with surprising strength. It was only then that Atoz got a good look at the creature's face. It was Korek!

[Niemz]

[/awesome]

[Mr. Atoz]

[and now, the conclusion...]

"This is my own folly," Ziphata said, shaking. "I insisted that my husband let Jabik take a watch, so that he could rest. If it had not been for me--"

"Let's not panic yet," said Weir, putting her arms around the woman to comfort her. "He could just be... relieving himself around the corner of the building."

"I told him not to leave the doorway. He has never disobeyed me before."

"He was lured away then?" said Weir thoughtfully. She was merely stating a supposition, submitting a hypothesis for testing, but right away she felt a frisson of fear. A memory. A whisper in the dark... "Ziphata, what have you and your husband found this season? Have you found any new scrolls?"

The woman looked at her incredulously. "Diane, how can you worry about this now? Jabik is--"

"Please listen to me, Ziphata," said Weir. "Zagir said you come to the ruins every year, and yet this is the first time you've been troubled by the Ancient Ones. What is different about this year?"

Ziphata shook her head uncertainly, eager to please but unable to think because of her worry about the boy. "Korek's brother was with us also, other times. But he became wedded this year. He is a merchant seaman now."

"Just one other person?" mused Weir. That might tend indicate a scavenger, afraid of people in any numbers. But it couldn't possibly be just that. "Are you sure? There has to be a logical reason the Ancient Ones never bothered you before now." Just then that eerie wailing sound came again, drifting on the night wind.

***

Atoz couldn't draw breath. Struggling to break free, his efforts felt totally ineffective against the rock solid strength of the creature. Without any doubt, Korek was dead – one hundred percent dead. How could he be walking around attacking people, unless he really were a vampire? It opened its mouth and Atoz heard its loud, wailing cry -- celebrating its victory or perhaps warning Zagir to keep away. Then his vision began to gray out.

A heavy thud resounded in the blackness, as Zagir's mace slammed into the vampire. Again and again. Atoz dropped to the dry, stony ground, gasping air into his lungs. He didn't see what happened next – in fact, he may have passed out for a few minutes. But then there was light, and Diane Weir's frightened face, glancing briefly into her tricorder and then setting it aside. "Captain, you're dehydrated and almost in shock. Are you all right?"

Atoz nodded. "I think so. What happened? Where's--?"

"I have killed the monster," said Zagir grimly, holding Ziphata in a tight embrace, the lantern set down in front of them to illuminate the scene. "But I fear that we were too late for my adopted son."

Atoz scrambled over to Jabik's body, feeling carefully for a pulse. "Help me, quickly," he muttered. Hurriedly he stretched the body out on a flat piece of ground and tilted his head back. As Zagir and Ziphata stared amazed, Atoz clamped his mouth over Jabik's mouth, blowing a deep lungful of air into his open throat. Without even stopping to see if it was effective, he shifted his position, pressed his clenched hands firmly down on the middle of Jabik's chest, and (hoping that his heart was in roughly the same place as a Human's), leaned forward.

"What is this you are doing?" said Zagir.

"No time to explain," muttered Atoz, doing another chest compression while Weir took over the mouth-to-mouth lung inflations. After three minutes of CPR, Jabik coughed and began breathing on his own, although he was still unconscious. Weir picked up her tricorder again and scanned him. Atoz tried to think, knowing that the sciences tricorder wasn't designed for medical analysis. "Try to get a biochemical assay of his blood," he said.

Weir pushed buttons on the instrument. "I've got it. He's lost a lot of blood... And I'm reading massive sodium depletion in his tissues."

Atoz glanced over her shoulder at the screen. "Of course. That explains the paralysis. All carbon based life forms use sodium and potassium ions for nerve conduction. The creature must somehow inject a catalyst through the epithelial layers and into the cell walls. Then it draws out the ions the same way."

"Those rings on the face?" said Weir.

Atoz slowly nodded. "I can't for the life of me figure out how Korek came back from the dead, though."

"He didn't," the science officer explained. Taking the captain by the arm, she led him to dead body of the vampire, where it had been transfixed by Jabik's spear. It was a stunted, ape-like thing, covered with coarse fur, and didn't look remotely human, let alone like Korek. Atoz knelt beside it, examining the strange sucker-like organs along the inner surface of its hands. "That wailing sound the creature makes got me thinking," Weir continued, "so I did an ultrasonic analysis. At certain frequencies, it can stimulate the medial temporal region of the brain. The part that handles memory and face recognition."

"Face recognition?" said Atoz, thinking. "You mean it selectively causes you to hallucinate someone you know?"

"Essentially. It would be a very good way to sneak up on someone."

Zagir and Ziphata, overjoyed that Jabik's life had been saved, had been blind and deaf to their explanations, as well as to their use of the tricorder. Zagir clasped Atoz' left hand in his and solemnly placed it on his forehead. "Thank you, Traveler. You have given me back my son. My head is yours."

[Mr. Atoz]

When the sun came up that morning, the three camel-like neroghs were loaded and ready to move. Jabik was conscious but still weak, reclining in a makeshift bed secured on the back of the largest of the animals. "Just remember," said Weir. "Give him plenty of water and salt for the next few days. I think he'll be okay."

Ziphata gave her a tight hug. "Oh, please come with us, Diane. Our house and all we possess are yours."

"That's very kind of you," said Weir, embracing her in return. "But we must be going home."

Zagir made a final adjustment to the straps holding Jabik in the saddle. "Perhaps I was a fool not to heed the legends," he said, shading his eyes as he looked out across the ruins of the ancient city.

"You're not a fool," said Atoz. "The Ancient Ones are not spirits. They are living things like yourselves. Scavengers. You should be cautious, but you shouldn't be afraid of them."

"But how can we defend against a creature which stalks in the night?"

"That's easy," said Weir. "Ziphata, what were you telling me about Korek's brother, the one who used to come with you?"

The woman shrugged. "Only that he had a lemt which he was fond of playing at night, while he was on watch."

"A lemt?" said Atoz.

"A flute-like musical instrument," said Weir. "It makes a wailing sound similar to the vampire's. I'm betting they mistook it for their own territorial cry, and avoided the area for that reason. They don't appear to be very intelligent."

"And if their habitat is an oasis in the middle of a largely untraveled desert," said Atoz, "chances are they're an endangered species."

"You use strange words, Traveler," said Zagir, clasping Atoz' forearm. "But I am proud to call you Friend. If you and your wife ever travel to Kro-perom, our house is yours."

"I'll remember that, Friend Zagir. Take care."

Shielding their eyes against the glare of the morning sun, Atoz and Weir watched as the caravan of three set out across the plain and mounted the same hill where the two of them had first appeared on this planet. Weir hefted the one skin of water which Ziphata had left them, wondering if the Captain had made the right decision to remain behind, but unwilling to voice her fears out loud. After a time, the three passed the crest of the hill and were lost to sight. The desert wind, already fueled by the heat of the rapidly rising sun, whispered across the sand like a ghost.

"I thought they'd never leave," said an irritated male voice.

***

"Q!" Atoz said, turning. "I might have known!"

"Yes, you might have," said the mysterious being sitting on the lip of the well, dressed like Lawrence of Arabia. "I arrange a romantic interlude in a beautiful oasis for just the two of you, but does anyone care? Do I get a simple 'Thank you, Q'?"

"Thank you?" Atoz stammered incredulously.

"You're welcome, Seven," said Q, waving his hand modestly. "It was no trouble, really."

"Does it amuse you to put us through things like this?"

Q lolled backwards against the stones. "I assure you, Seven, I'm not easily amused. Do you think there's anything your pathetic species can come up with that I haven't seen a billion times over? Including your Puritanical ideas about simple biological functions."

"I... What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about love, romance, ooh-la-la... sex, if you want to get technical! You dream about it most of the time, but when you get the chance, you put up roadblocks for yourselves. What's it going to take for you and Weir to admit you have a thing for one another?"

"It's not that simple!" said Atoz, as Weir blushed and looked awkwardly at the ground.

"Oh, isn't it?" Q disappeared, then instantly reappeared just behind Atoz, whispering in the Human's ear. "You know you want to do it. You know she wants to do it. If you asked her, she dive in between the sheets so fast, she'd get friction burns."

"Q, I'm..." said Atoz, mastering his temper with difficulty. "I'm not having this conversation. Is that the only reason you brought us here?"

"Far be it from me to criticize, Seven," said Q, "but last time we met, it occurred to me that were a little too smug for your own good."

"Smug?"

"Yes, smug. I think it does you a world of good to be set down somewhere without your precious phasers and technology every now and then." Q paused as a new thought struck him. "But you know, armed with just a tricorder, you could probably rule this entire planet."

Atoz planted his hands sternly on his hips. "If you had learned anything at all from Jean-Luc Picard, you'd know that Humans aren't interested in ruling planets any more. And what have you done with my ship?"

"Oh, pish!" said Q. "I did nothing. And I left a trail of bread crumbs for Fawkes. In fact, assuming he's not a total idiot, he should be turning up just... about..."

Atoz' comm badge chirped. Q beamed. "Well, so sorry to torture and run, Seven, but you know how it is. It isn't easy being an omnipotent being." With a brilliant flash of light, he was gone.

"Captain? Commander Weir? This is the Odysseus. Please respond."

"This is Captain Atoz. It's a pleasure to hear you, Mr. Fawkes."

"If you don't mind me asking, sir," said the First Officer's voice, "can you tell me how the hell you got here?"

Atoz took a deep breath and looked uneasily over at Weir, still contemplating the sand at her feet. He expected her to be embarrassed, mortified, infuriated, or just plain relieved, but to his surprise, there was a tiny smile on her face. She raised her head, her eyes looking straight into his. After a moment, she reached over and quietly held his hand, showing no sign of self-consciousness. "I'm afraid that's a long story, Commander," said Atoz. "Two to beam up."

The science officer hurriedly snatched her hand away and composed herself. Her body was ramrod straight and proper again by the time the shimmering transporter beams had taken effect, dissolving the two of them into coherent energy patterns and taking them home. And that was exactly as it should be.


<<< THE END >>>