<USS Cervantes> "Haunt"

"Haunt"
Ashne'e Al Kiara
 
What cities, as great as this.. Here stood their citadel, but now grown
over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every
noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an
undistinguished heap of ruins.
Goldsmith: The Bee, No. iv. (1759.) A City Night-Piece.
 
 
            Their doubts were melted in a din of excited explanations.
Emotions and tempers were high. 
            Oriana's brow knit as she explained the Khefiraa's plight,
and her desires were written as clearly on her face as if she had spoken
them aloud, which she did not, leaving them as a sugar-coated subtext, a
predictable praxis.
            Lifting a decayed fragment of unrecognizable parchment from
a stone tableau, Ashne'e said, "Last night, it was difficult to remember
that these people are dead, and that this fate is as inevitable for them
as the fall of Egypt, the demise of Alexandria." Ashne'e hoped Oriana
would understand.
            Ssarish extended her clawed forelimb for the parchment.
Careful not to damage it by twisting the fragile remnant  between her
fingers, Ashne'e returned it to her. "Yes," the reptile agreed, her slit
eyes inscrutable. "They are a dream we have every night, but this is
reality."
            "But it doesn't have to be!" Oriana blurted. "We can
influence the past, so at night it's our present! All we'd have to do
is."
            "What?" leveled Kennedy. 
"This situation is one big tangle," Ashne'e agreed. "And we can't be
sure what will happen if we pull on any of the threads."
            "Thanks to your interference," Kennedy concluded.
            Ssarish rattled deep in her throat like an angry snake. 
            "No need for conflict," Bela admonished amiably. To Ssarish,
he added, "Our culture believes that pre-warp societies should remain
untouched so they have time to develop."
            "We agree." Ssarish appraised both Bela and Kennedy under
her harsh, reptilian gaze, and it had an unnerving effect although she
had no fangs to back up the threat of a cobra strike. "That is why we
wear the black cloaks, so they will not know who we are."
            Kennedy snorted. "Black cloaks, right. Excellent choice. For
*hiding*." She tossed her own cloak on the ground where it raised a
petite monsoon. "As an extra bonus, they even make you imposing. So then
you have complete free reign to statuize as many as you can." She
sniffed. "Don't try to put one over on me with fashion. I *know*
fashion."
            "That is a religious ritual. We do not interfere," snapped
Ssarish. Her tail was beginning to writhe, and Ashne'e imagined she saw
a darkening of the scales, flushing around her neck.
            Kennedy rolled her eyes, and shifted her weight so that one
hip jutted out like a prow. "So care to explain why one of our people
found one of yours trying to make a museum piece out of a living
felinoid? That doesn't sound like much of a noninterference doctrine."
            Immediately, the swooshing tale froze, but the scales
blackened like ash. "I never dreamed," Ssarish growled, "that even
Rahssh would stoop so low."
            "Rahssh?"
            "He didn't come to the Rites last night," explained Ssarish.
Her diamond pupils were scanning the area restlessly; she seemed to be
looking for a convenient target to take her rage out on. "After we
uncovered the first statue from the temple rooms, in the future, he kept
whining to Ss'lih and complaining that we should have sold it for a
profit instead of sending it back to the Elder Ones. Like Ss'lih, I
thought the matter was closed when we discovered that the rest of the
temple was a flattened ruin in our time. Any other statues displayed
there were all crushed into powder when the city fell. I should have
suspected he would do the dishonorable thing. He insinuated himself with
the priests, stole their secrets, would never tell us what he found."
With a lightning snap of her ankle, she demolished a sturdy white stone
beneath her claws. She was colored obsidian, darker than midnight. "I
should have known!" she growled enraged. "Waving all that money around,
lavishing in luxuries the rest of the camp couldn't afford! Him and
Lisith!"
            "Lisith?" Ashne'e repeated, slowly. "Lisith is dead. Our
other team found his corpse. He appeared to have been murdered."
            "The scoundrel!" roared Ssarish. Enraged like this she was
terrifying - a thunder lizard. Ashne'e took a step backwards, and she
saw that the others were doing so as well. Primates have, from time
immemorial, had only one reaction to the menace of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
"Rahssh must have murdered him, and taken all the money. He's a mean,
dirty little creature. No cast standing. Never even had eggs in his
lisss! And he'll take the statues!" This idea seemed to infuriate
Ssarish far more than the mention of any mere murder. "The beautiful
statues! He'll take them and sell them! They should be studied!"
Suddenly excited, she looked down at Ashne'e and gesticulated. "Did you
know that if you touch them, you receive an empathic echo of the last
moment of their lives? I never knew. mammal emotions are so odd. So many
planes between lust and anger." Ashne'e couldn't distinguish whether her
shudder was excitement or revulsion.
            "Yes," Ashne'e agreed. "We touched the ones in the temple."
            Ssarish threw her head back, her snout peaking upward. A
whirr-click rose as the scales on her neck pulsed rhythmically to a
gyration of her throat muscles.
            "So what's the big deal?" interjected McKnight. "Get him
back, and take the statues."
          Ignoring the question, Ashne'e inclined her head. "If he tries
to leave the planet, my ship can stop him." Taking a step away, she
placed her hand on her comm. badge. "Al Kiara to Cervantes. Are there
any other ships 
in the area?"
             The faint beep of the machinery as it conducted a scan was
audible over the comm. connection. "No, Admiral." Lar replied. "Just us
and the Andorian ship. No traffic in the system in the past week."
             "He's still on the planet, then," Ashne'e said to Ssarish.
"Can you pinpoint the locations of all the Ss'thla on the planet?"
             "Yes, I think so. just a second. There. Okay there are four
are in your area -"
             "Issorh, Schtor and Orschh are behind the library," Ssarish
indicated. "The four of us come here every night, but they keep a lower
profile than I do. Except Orschh. He plays with the children."
             "-then there are four in the temple-"
             "He won't be with them," Kennedy pointed out, "if he's
trying to get away with the statues, that's the last place he'd be."
             "-and one in the main camp."
             "Ss'lih," provided Ssarish. "He returns to the camp at
dawn, immediately. His work does not wait."
             "That's it," Lar chimed in over the comm.
             "It can't be." Ssarish's tail blurred back and forth like a
metronome. "There are eleven of us. With Lisith dead, there should be
ten lifesigns, not nine."
             "That's all I'm reading." Lar protested.
             "Please do another scan, Lieutenant," Ashne'e ordered in
the tone of a suggestion. "With the highest acuity possible."
             "All right." A few seconds passed tensely and the sun made
its presence felt, just hinting at the heat of high noon, but still
malevolently broiling the crewmen. Bela, McKnight and Oriana removed
their cloaks. " I've got it. There are two more lifesigns, only they
aren't really lifesigns. They're corpses. Recently dead enough for me to
be able to pick up some of their biological processes. One's by the
temple--that's Lisith. The other is. in the camp, by the trading post."
             Ssarish was silent at the news, and although it had seemed
impossible for her scales to grow any blacker, somehow they had managed.
             "Thank you, Lieutenant. Keep an eye out for any vessels. We
are here with Ssarish, and she is concerned that Rahssh may try to
depart the planet with statues stolen from Khefiraa."
             Lar replied with an unusual edge of sarcasm. "I suppose it 
doesn't matter now, sir. If Ssarish is helping you, she isn't involved.
The Andorian ship up here - there are several statues onboard. I'm
detaining them."
             Ashne'e paused, opened her mouth to speak, then changed her
mind. She pondered for a few moments, her eyes watering as they stared
into the bright sky.
             "Bela," she ordered when she had done thinking, "go to the
Andorian ship, take an inventory, and find out what they've stolen, and
who helped them acquire it. Then transfer it to our cargo bay." To
Ssarish, she added, "we'll make sure it gets back where it belongs."
Turning back to Bela: "But keep them here, for now. Let them know we'll
be bringing this to the Federation Trade Commission unless we get
satisfaction."
             Bela nodded swiftly.
             "Bell, McKnight, you'll be accompanying him back to the
ship. There's no reason for you to stay down here. Lieutenant Rhune and
I will investigate the corpse."
             Standing abruptly, McKnight protested. "I should be with
you. You might need security."
             Ashne'e waved him aside. "Kennedy and I are both certified
with phasers. Bela will need you more against the Andorians than I do,
and there's still the possibility one of the Ss'thla will try to leave
with the statues. Cervantes may need you at tactical."
             Grudgingly, McKnight stepped back toward Bela. Oriana, who
had been sitting on her own a few paces away, staring pensively at the
sand, stood, brushed off her uniform, and joined them.
             "Ready to beam up, Lieutenant Lar," Bela said, with a swift
tap of his comm. badge.
             The three of them disappeared, another trickle of Starfleet
officers vanishing from the ruined world of Khefiraa.
             And then there were two.

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