New Frontier Page 3

  He looked at the position that the sun held in the sky. Knowing beyond any question that he wanted to head east, he set off determinedly in that direction. He didn’t know, however, that he was concussed, confused, still in shock. Consequently, weary and bone-tired, he’d hauled himself east for nearly a day before he suddenly realized that he wanted, in fact, to head west.

  By this time he couldn’t move his arm at all, and he felt as if his face were on fire. But the sun had set, and he knew that there was no way he was going to survive another day of trekking through the heat. He could not, however, simply stay where he was, which meant that night travel was his only option. That suited him better, actually, because—despite his exhaustion—he was afraid to go to sleep for fear that he would not awaken. It was a concern that had some merit to it. And so, memorizing the point over the distant ridges where the sun had set, and using the stars as his guide, M’k’n’zy set off west.

  He heard the howling of the storm mere moments before it hit, giving him no time at all to seek shelter, and the winds hammered him mercilessly. M’k’n’zy was sent hurtling across the ground like a rock skipping across the surface of a lake. And finally M’k’n’zy, who had endured so much in silence, actually let out a howl of fury. How much was he supposed to take? After everything that had been inflicted upon him by the Danteri, now the gods were out to get him, too? Couldn’t he be the recipient of the smallest crumb of luck?

  And the gods answered him. The answer, unfortunately, was to try and make clear to him that he was something of an ingrate. He was, after all, still alive. The gods, if gods there were, had permitted him to survive, and if that was not sufficient for him, well then here was a reminder of how grateful he should be. Whereupon the winds actually lifted M’k’n’zy off his feet. His hands clawed at air, which naturally didn’t provide him with much support.

  “Stoppppp!” he shouted, and then he did indeed stop . . . when the wind slammed him against a stone outcropping. And darkness drew M’k’n’zy in once more.

  And the darkness tried to hold on to him as well, keeping him there as a permanent dweller. After what seemed an eternity, he fought his way back to wakefulness. By the time he awoke it was day again. His fever was blazing, his wound red and inflamed. He felt as if the only two things inside his skull were the constant pounding and a tongue that had swollen to three times its normal size. He now had a ghastly purpling bruise on the left side of his head to match the mangling of the right side of his face.

  By this point he had no clear idea where he was supposed to go, in which direction lay safety, or even what safety was. His own identity was beginning to blur. He fought to remember his name, his home, his purpose. He was . . . he was M’k’n’zy of Calhoun . . . and he . . .

  And then, like an insect wafted by a breeze, it would flitter away from him before he could quite wrap himself around it. He tried to chase it, as if he were capable of actually laying hands on a passing thought, and then he collapsed while at the top of a small hill. He tumbled forward, rolling down gravel which shredded his abused body even further. By the time he lay at the bottom of the hill, he was beyond caring.

  He might have lain there for hours or days. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t interested. All he wanted was for the pounding to go away, for the heat to leave him, for the pain to cease. How much was he supposed to endure, anyway? How much was he supposed to take?

  He was tired. Tired of people depending upon him. Tired of people looking to him for decisions. All his life, as far back as he could remember, he had been fired with determination and singularity of vision. Obsession, some would likely have called it. Still others would have dubbed it insanity.

  But behind the obsession or insanity or whatever label some would attach to it was his own, deep-rooted fear that he would be “found out.” That deep down he was nothing more than a frightened young man, rising to the demands or expectations held by himself and others. As he lay there, feverish and dying, all the midnight fears visited themselves upon him, boldly displaying themselves in the heat of the midday sun. Fears of inadequacy, fears of not measuring up to the task he had set himself and the standard others now held for him.

  It had been so easy at first. There had been no expectations. He had fired up his followers based solely on conviction and charisma. He had predicted success in battle, and then provided it. He had told his people that the Danteri would soon find themselves on the defensive, and he’d met that promise as well.

  But as he’d taken the Xenexians step by difficult step closer to their goal, paradoxically that goal became more and more frightening even as it drew constantly closer. For two fears continued to burn within him. One was that, after all the effort and striving, the goal would be snatched from them at the last moment. And the second was that, if the goal was achieved . . . if the Xenexians won their freedom from the Danteri . . .

  . . . then what?

  He’d never thought beyond it. Indeed, the fact that he never had thought beyond it was enough to make him wonder whether he himself, secretly, deep down, didn’t consider it a true possibility.

  Get up.

  His eyes flickered open, wondering at the voice within his head. It was the first thing he’d detected inside his skull in ages aside from the pounding.

  His father was standing nearby, standing in profile. His back was raw with whip marks. The sun shone through his head, and a small creature scuttled uncaring through his foot. He didn’t seem to notice. Get up, damn you, he said, his mouth not moving.

  “Go away,” said M’k’n’zy. “Go away. Just want to sleep.”

  Get up. I order you to . . .

  “Save your orders!” snapped M’k’n’zy. At least, that’s what it sounded like to him. Truth to tell, he was so dehydrated, his lips so swollen and cracked, his tongue such a useless slab of overcooked meat, that anyone else listening would have been able to discern nothing much beyond inarticulate grunts. “I begged you to stay! Begged you! Where were your orders, your pride, when I needed you, huh? Where? Where?”

  Get up.

  “Go to hell,” he said, and rolled over, turning his back to his father.

  There was a woman next to him. A naked woman, with thick blond hair and a mischievous grin on her face. She was running intangible fingers across his chest.

  Get up, sleepyhead, she said. There was a playfulness in her voice, and something told him that it wasn’t her usual tone. That it was something she reserved for him, and only for him. That in real life, she was tough, unyielding, uncompromising. Only with him would she let down her guard.

  He blinked in confusion. He had never seen her before, and yet it was as if he knew her intimately. It was as if she filled a void that he didn’t even know he had. “Who—?”

  Get up, Mac, she admonished him. We have things to do. . . .

  He stared at her. She had a beautiful body. A flat stomach, firm breasts. M’k’n’zy had never, in point of fact, seen a naked woman before. Oh, there had been women, yes. But it had always been rushed, even secretive, under cover of darkness or with most clothes still in place. He had never simply relaxed with a woman, though. Never lain naked next to one, never idly run his fingers over her form, tracing her curves. Never been at ease . . . with anyone. . . .

  What are you thinking, Mac? she asked him.

  He reached a tentative hand over to cup her breast, and his hand passed through and came up with sand. There was no sign of her.

  With a howl of frustration (or, more realistically, a strangled grunt) he lunged for the place where she’d been, as if he hoped to find that she had sunk straight into the sand and was hiding just below the surface. Some sand got in his eye, and it felt like someone had jabbed pieces of glass into his face. He blinked the eye furiously until the obstruction was gone, but now his vision was clouded.

  The world was spinning around him and this time he did nothing to fight it off. All he had to do was get some rest and he’d be okay. That was the one thing of which he was
absolutely positive.

  Yes . . . yes, just a little rest . . .

  The ground seemed softer than he’d thought it would. Everything was relaxing around him, beckoning to him to relax, just . . . relax. That was all he had to do.

  That’s not an option.

  It was a different voice this time, and it certainly wasn’t female. He looked up in confusion.

  There was a man standing there, shimmering as if from a far-off time and place. He wore some sort of uniform, black and red, with a gleaming metal badge on his chest. He was more or less bald, and his face was sharp and severe. Yet there was compassion there as well.

  “Go away,” whispered M’k’n’zy.

  You’re a Starfleet officer. No matter what you are now . . . that is what you will always be. You cannot turn away from that.

  M’k’n’zy had absolutely no idea what was happening, and he certainly was clueless as to what this . . . this transparent being was talking about. “What’s . . . what’s Starfleet? What . . . who are you? What . . .”

  You have a destiny. Don’t you dare let it slide away. Now get up. Get up, if you’re a man.

  There was a gurgle of anger deep within M’k’n’zy’s throat. He didn’t know who this shade was, didn’t comprehend the things he said. But no one questioned M’k’n’zy’s bravery. No one . . . not even hallucinations.

  M’k’n’zy hauled himself to his feet, adrenaline firing him. He staggered forward, and the bald taunter didn’t disappear as the woman had. Instead he seemed to float in front of M’k’n’zy, M’k’n’zy steadily pursuing him. He continued to speak to M’k’n’zy, but M’k’n’zy wasn’t really paying attention to the details of his words. Indeed, they all seemed to blend together.

  And he heard ghosts of other voices as well, although he didn’t see the originators. Voices with odd accents, saying strange names . . .

  . . . and there was one word repeated. It seemed to be addressed to him, which was why it caught his attention. And the word was . . .

  . . . Captain.

  He tried rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth, to say it. As before, nothing intelligible emerged.

  Time and distance seemed to melt away around him as he followed the floating, spectral figure. Every step brought newer, greater strength to his legs, and soon his pain was forgotten, his dizziness forgotten, everything forgotten except catching up with his vision.

  It all came rushing back to him. The stories of the Allways, the visions of one’s future that one could come upon in the Pit if one was open enough to them. The visions which had refused to come to him when he had sought them out. And now, when nothing concerned him—not even his own survival—that was when sights of the future presented themselves.

  But was it the future? Or was it just . . . just fanciful notions from deep within his subconscious? That certainly seemed the more reasonable explanation. In his youth (odd that a man barely past nineteen summers would think in such terms) he had believed in fanciful mysticism. But he’d seen too much, stood over too many bloodied bodies. The fancies of his younger days were far behind.

  But still . . . it had seemed real . . . so real . . .

  And it was still there.

  Still there.

  That floating, bald-headed son of a bitch was still there, floating away, leading him on, ever on. M’k’n’zy let out a roar of frustration that, this time, actually sounded like something other than a grunt, and he ran. If he’d actually been paying attention to what he was doing, he would have realized the pure impossibility of it. He was suffering from exhaustion, blood loss, dehydration, and fever. There was no way that someone who was in that bad shape should be able to move at a dead run across the blazing surface of the Pit, yet that was precisely what M’k’n’zy was doing. And it was all happening because he refused to let that ghostly whatever-it-was taunt him this way.

  “Who are you?!” he shouted. “Where are you from? Where’s the girl? What’s happening?! What’s going to happen! Damn you, I am M’k’n’zy of Calhoun, and you will not run from me!”

  There was a gap in the ground directly in his path. If he’d fallen into it, he could easily have broken his leg. It was five feet wide and eight feet deep. He leaped over it without slowing down in the slightest, and he wasn’t even really aware that it was there.

  And then he saw that the phantom, which was still some yards ahead, was beginning to shimmer. He got the sense that it was fading out on him altogether, and the knowledge infuriated him all the more. “Get back here!” he shouted. “Get back here!”

  The specter faded altogether . . . but there was something standing in its place. Something of far greater substance, accompanied by a few other somethings.

  • • •

  M’k’n’zy’s brother, D’ndai, stood there and waved his arms frantically. Around him were several other members of the search party, which had been wandering the Pit for some days in what had seemed increasingly futile search for M’k’n’zy.

  D’ndai was a head taller than M’k’n’zy, and half again as wide. He was also several years older. Yet from the way in which D’ndai treated his brother, one would have thought that D’ndai was the younger, for he seemed to regard M’k’n’zy with a sort of wonder. In many ways, truthfully, he was in awe of D’ndai. M’k’n’zy had always taken great pride in the fact that D’ndai was such a confident, trusting soul that he didn’t feel the least bit threatened by the fact that his younger brother’s star shone far more brightly than his own.

  The relief which flooded over and through D’ndai was visible for all to see. He choked back a sob of joy and threw wide his arms, shouting his brother’s name.

  M’k’n’zy ran up to him . . .

  . . . and pushed past him.

  “Get back here!” he shouted at thin air.

  The rescue party members looked at each other in confusion. On the one hand M’k’n’zy looked to be in absolutely hideous shape; on the other hand, he certainly seemed peppy enough for a man who was at death’s door.

  “M’k’n’zy?” called D’ndai in confusion.

  M’k’n’zy didn’t appear to hear him, or if he did, he simply ignored him. Instead he kept on running, gesticulating furiously, howling, “You don’t get away that easily!” By the time the rescuers had recovered their wits, he was already fifty paces beyond them and moving fast.

  They set out after him at a full run, and it was everything they could do to catch up with him. D’ndai reached him first, and grabbed him by the arm. “M’k’n’zy!” he shouted, keeping him in place. He gasped as he saw the huge gash in his brother’s face close up for the first time. He tried not to let his shock sound in his voice. “M’k’n’zy, it’s me!”

  “Let me go!” he shouted, yanking furiously at D’ndai’s arm. “Let me go! I have to catch him!”

  “There’s nothing there! You’re hallucinating!”

  “He’s getting away! He’s getting away!”

  D’ndai swung him around and fairly shouted in his face, “M’k’n’zy, get hold of yourself! There’s nothing there!”

  M’k’n’zy again tried to pull clear, but when he turned to attempt further pursuit of whatever it was that existed in his delusional state, he seemed to sag in dismay. “He’s gone! He got away!” He turned back, hauled off and slugged D’ndai with a blow that—had he been at full strength—would damn near have taken D’ndai’s head off. As it was, it only rocked him slightly back on his feet. “He got away and it’s all your fault!”

  “Fine, it’s my fault,” D’ndai said.

  M’k’n’zy looked at him with great disdain and said, “And what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to take you home . . . help you . . . cure you . . .” He put his hand against M’k’n’zy’s forehead. “Gods, you’re burning up.”

  M’k’n’zy tried to make a response, but just then the exhaustion, the fever, everything caught up with him at the exact moment that the adrenaline wore off. He tr
ied to say something, but wasn’t able to get a coherent sentence out. Instead he took a step forward and then sagged into his older brother’s arms. D’ndai lifted him as if he were weightless and said, “Let’s get him out of here.”

  “Do you think he’ll make it?” one of the others asked him.

  “Of course he’ll make it,” said D’ndai flatly as he started walking at a brisk clip in the direction of their transport vehicles. “He’s got too much to do to die.”

  III.

  M’K’N’ZY HEARD THEM TALKING in quiet, hushed tones outside his room, and slowly he sat up in bed. He was pleased to see that, for the first time in days, all of the dizziness was gone. He didn’t feel the slightest bit disoriented. The pounding had long faded. In short, he finally didn’t feel as if his head were about to fall off at any given moment, a state of affairs that could only be considered an improvement.

  D’ndai had been cautioning him to stay put, to take it easy, to rest up. He was being extremely solicitous of his younger brother’s health, and it was starting to get on M’k’n’zy’s nerves. His impulse was to get out of bed and back on his feet, but D’ndai was always cautioning him not to rush things. It was advice that M’k’n’zy was having a hard time taking. It didn’t help that it was, in fact, very solid advice indeed. Particularly considering the fact that the first time M’k’n’zy had defiantly sprung from his bed, proclaiming that he was fit and ready to go, the room promptly tilted at forty-five degrees and sent him tumbling to the ground. That had been over a week ago.