DUST

by ardavenport


- - - Part 1

Janeway coughed, covering her mouth and trying not to stir up more dust that would make her cough again. She held back the coughing fit until tears ran down her face and the urge finally passed. She desperately wanted to take a deep breath but she dared not for fear of inhaling more mildew and dry powder. She would NOT come all this way only to succumb to it now. She couldn't wipe her eyes without rubbing grime into them, her face and her uniform were so filthy. She had given up wiping her nose as well.

She crept forward again, crawling on her stomach, mostly using her arms and shoulders to pull herself along. The vent shaft was just wide enough for her, but not tall enough for her to crawl on her hands and knees. She had tried using her legs by pushing off with her ankles when the pain on her elbows and in her shoulders got to be too much, but it didn't get her very far for very long. The motion was awkward and it made her legs cramp.

How long was this damn shaft anyway? The colony's artificial mountain was fifteen kilometers across at the base and the interior was at least 3 kilometers wide; so probably no more than 6 kilometers. The vent had been blessedly straight; no turns, no curves, no side tunnels, giving her hope that she would emerge outside. Eventually. Not that she could see where she was going in the pitch blackness, but it felt like she had been going straight all this time. She knew it had to lead somewhere. She felt a tingle of new air pushed by some invisible mechanism, just enough to thin its oppressive density and loosen a few fat dust balls.

Janeway broke her crawling rhythm and covered her mouth to keep herself from inhaling the dust she stirred up. A sneeze threatened and she waited for it to pass. She cleared her throat, which was getting hideously raw from the coughing and she couldn't breathe through her nose anymore. Her shoulders ached and the cold, hard stone she crawled on drove into the end-bones of her elbows, even through the material of her uniform and the thick dust layer. She couldn't lie down without putting her nose right in the powdery grit. And it grew even thicker on the walls and ceiling where she dislodged the occasional clump with her shoulder or the top of her head.

After a few more moments of rest, she advanced again, using her legs again this time, putting her weight on her hands and forearms to take the pressure off her elbows. She kept her head down as she advanced, her eyes closed in the blackness. She had seen plenty when she first got into the shaft. These were colonies of dust that she crawled through and destroyed, not just ordinary microscopic debris and accumulation. Big, pinkish balls, like fluffy dandelion heads clung to the walls. Linty, pale greenish blue stalactites hung from above and her path was carpeted with a thick, patterned layer. The dust mites on this world were organized like ants. Their works stifled sound and motion, even as she collapsed their structures. Janeway wondered that she wasn't attacked for all the destruction she had done, consumed into dust herself for dragging her body through their world. But the microscopic dust colonies were apparently too low a form of life to be aware of the source of their destruction. The only sound that survived around her was her own body scraping along the vent. Any noise she made went flat and dead, with no echo at all.

How far had she come? Maybe halfway? Maybe two-thirds? She stifled the optimism and decided it was only halfway. She did not want to give herself any excuse for slowing down. She continued, trying to keep a steady pace, using her legs less and her arms more again.

Captain Janeway just wished she knew if L'San had even discovered that she had escaped. She was sure she had come far enough that any sound of rage or pursuit that the colonist leader might make would not carry to where she was now.

An involuntary trembling momentarily went through her body as she crawled and thought of the colonists. She had been shocked when she'd discovered that she could pry off the cover of the air vent in her cell. Hesitating to take it when she'd seen what was inside, she had crawled in anyway. Unpleasant as it was, if L'San was going to leave such an obvious opening, she would take it. They had not put her in a proper cell; it had been a utility room, pillaged and stripped of anything useful. Janeway doubted that they even realized that when they had activated the weather control mechanisms of their artificial mountain that they had blocked her com badge and Voyager's transporter, trapping her with them. The Senk'vasi were broad and stout, like Pakleds with green skin and two extra arms, so it probably hadn't even occurred to them that their Human prisoner was small enough to escape out the air vent.

The top of her head touched a slightly unyielding surface before breaking though. Clinging strands of the remains stuck to her as she continued forward. Janeway held her breath until she was sure she was past it. The dust sometimes formed thin, porous membranes across the vent and the only thing she could do was keep her head down and push through them. She hated them worst of all. They created huge amounts of airborne particles when they broke apart and she had spent long minutes sneezing and hacking them up the first time she'd run into one. And they reminded her far too much of spider webs and she subconsciously dreaded that there ought to be a spider attached to them, waiting to smother her, to suck her blood, chew her flesh . . .

She shuddered, banishing that primal fear. Then she sneezed, twice. And it hurt because she had to pinch her nose closed to keep from spewing dust back at herself.

She crawled steadily for long minutes in the utter blackness before she couldn't stand the pain in her elbows, and now her knees, anymore. Turning over onto her back, her knees and hips bumped into the walls of the shaft. Clumps of debris fell away around her from the sides of the shaft, breaking up into the air. Her head sank right through the padding of dust onto the hard, smooth floor. More of it fell down into her eyes and nose and mouth. She hastily turned over onto her right side. Another coughing fit took hold and her throat and chest ached from the effort to control it and keep her body still. Her nose ran; more tears streamed down the dirty film on her face, but at last the fit passed.

Breathing shallowly, Janeway held still, her back pressed to the wall. Long strands of hair that had come loose from her bun were now caught behind her, pulling if she turned her head. She lay there until the ache in her right shoulder forced her to slowly turn over onto her stomach again. Along with the other pains and blisters on her elbows, her neck hurt from holding her face up away from the dust while keeping it low enough to avoid the gossamer clusters above. She started to crawl again.

The oppressive darkness was getting claustrophobic. She could feel the weight of the tons of rock and dirt above pressing in on her. The shaft was only as wide as a crypt and silent as a grave. If she died here, would her body be slowly consumed by the dust mites? Would they wait until she stopped breathing to start their work? Janeway clenched her teeth and remembered L'San and her followers, eeking out a last distillation of grief from this failed colony. Their hands twitching, their skin an odious, waxy green, they were sickly imitations of the few healthy survivors in the forest outside who had escaped the degenerate life within the artificial weather mountain and send out a call for help that Voyager answered.

Yesterday, Neelix had been so surprised when she had told him that the ship's sensors found the remains of the colony on this nameless world.

"Senk'vasi living off of their home world? I've never heard of such a thing!" had been the Talaxian's response.

The fourteen Senk'vasi greeted them as rescuers, for they had no functional ships to escape their folly with. They willingly handed over information, equipment and supplies that Voyager could use and which the Senk'vasi badly never wanted to see again in exchange for passage to anyplace where they could get transport home. But they had made one request-that Voyager find out what happened to their comrades who had disappeared into the mountain.

The top of Janeway's head touched another layer of dust. She held her breath and pushed through. Her head hit smoothing hard.

Janeway stopped crawling.

Her fingers crept forward through the dust covering and touched a stone wall in front of her. She didn't move her head as her hands felt the walls to either side of her. A dead end.

She kept still, her mind trapped on the single thought that she would now have to crawl backwards, looking for the side passage that she must have missed, the air getting harder and harder to breathe as she went. She doubted that she could attempt turning around without choking herself, if there was room enough for her to do it at all. Her heart raced.

Damn.

And if she had missed the side passage once, how could she be sure that she wouldn't miss it again? She knew she would have to go much slower, but she didn't know how much more dust and crawling she could stand. Her shoulders, her legs, her neck were sore from her exertion. She knew they would stiffen up if she stopped for anything more than a short rest now. A blister on her left elbow had broken and how long did she have before that got infected? Her throat burned from the dust and coughing. She was incredibly thirsty and probably dehydrated. But she had no hope for rest or relief as long as she was trapped in this tunnel.

Then her mind fixed on one hope . . .

Janeway lifted her head, checking the height of the ceiling. She lifted her shoulders and then her body until she was supporting herself on her hands. She looked up . . .

. . . and saw something.

It wasn't much, just faint, hazy clusters of gray. More dust balls clinging to a ceiling high above her, but they were visible.

Which meant that there was light coming in from somewhere.

She looked up the shaft of a chimney that seemed to lead to another horizontal section. She turned herself around, then brought her legs into the vertical shaft and stood up. It felt wonderful to be on her feet again, but she had to steady herself against a dizzy spell, her hands sinking deep into the plush dust of the walls. This stuff was grainy with clingy filaments like cobwebs and she recoiled from it.

Janeway reached up and her fingertips found the edge above her, almost out of reach. She flexed the muscles of her legs trying to stretch. She placed one foot, then the other on the side wall, jamming her back against the opposite side of the shaft. Her knees were now up against her chest, feet and back pressed deep into the fluff. She could feel round and oblong shapes collapsing as she crept upward, pulling up with her feet, then with her shoulders, then her feet. An avalanche of huge chunks of lint came away down around her and she held her breath as much as possible. It had already covered her, but now it got down into the front of her jumpsuit, under her collar and deep into her boots. She was pulling her hair again and this time she did stop to free it. The rest of her bun came undone, falling apart, like the dust clusters around her, the fasteners coming down onto her shoulders and then disappearing down into darkness under her.

Her hand felt the edge of the upper shaft and her strength increased. Her head pressed deep into the linty globules on the ceiling, crushing them, but her feet still weren't above the edge of the upper shaft. There was much more light around her and she could see the delicate work of the dust mites crumbling, but she kept all of her attention on the wall opposite her. A fall back down into the hole would cost her more than she could afford. Her burning lungs ached for air from her exertion.

With one foot to push her shoulder over the edge, she braced her body, one arm on the floor, one on the ceiling as she plowed through the powdery layers and used both her legs to push herself into the new shaft.

Far ahead of her, Janeway looked at the literal light at the end of the tunnel. Her feet still dangled over the vertical shaft, but she was in no danger of falling in. She dragged herself forward. This new section was exactly the same width and size as the lower one. Except now she could see the hideous accumulation she crawled through again. It was as vile and repellent as tendrils of fungus, but dry and alien. Janeway could hardly smell anything anymore, but it still reminded her of dead, desiccated things. She loathed the thought of how much of it she'd breathed in and swallowed during her coughing fits.

She crawled forward, her body aching, but her goal in sight. The square of light grew in size, crossed bars covering the opening. Janeway could see more colors in the clumps and tendrils of dust, lumps of grainy browns and pinks, and fine veins of green in the blue clusters. Some of them had dark specks showing through them, like tiny seeds. Daylight shone through the square grating at the end of the shaft.

Her hands touched the metal grating, her fingers curling around the narrow bars. Janeway pulled herself forward and then pressed her nose out through one of the square holes, desperate for cleaner air. But the dust and lint she'd stirred up thwarted her and she had to wait until it settled before tentatively taking a breath. The air burned her parched and abused throat. She moaned and that hurt her, too.

Her fingers tightened on the barrier of cris-crossed iron and she tugged on it.

It didn't budge.

Janeway firmed her grip and pushed. The grate didn't move at all. She tried to anchor herself by bracing her knees on either side of the shaft walls, but the positioning was awkward and didn't help much. She pulled and pushed, trying to loosen it, but it was like trying to move the mountain itself. Brushing the dust balls away from the inside edges and out the grate, she ran her fingernails along the seam between rock and metal. There was hardly a crack. Flimsy, wooly clumps cascaded down and disintegrated as she looked for a weakness. She coughed and ducked her head away from the pinkish cloud. It hurt a lot now and her mouth tasted like iron. She managed to stop, and when the dust had settled, she resumed her probing. Dust and grime jammed under her fingernails.

Beyond the rocky, cleared area around the base of the mountain towered the green-blue foliage of the forest of huge, primitive fern-like plants. The grate was about a meter above the ground. Peering out at the surroundings, she saw that the daylight wasn't nearly as bright as she had first thought after hours of total darkness. The sky overhead was thick and gray with low clouds. She heard thunder and a little wind, caused by the weather mechanisms of the mountain.

Janeway pushed on one side of the grate and then the other, and then on the corners, hoping to find a weak spot. But it remained solid.

Her panic and dread returned, stronger this time than when she'd thought she'd hit a dead end. Somehow, dying, suffocating in dust, alone in the dark, was less terrifying than doing it within site of freedom. Her hands began to tremble.


- - - End Part 1