The Sarpeidon Chronicles
Part 5: The Way to Dusty Death
Chapter 5
They worked late into the night, examining the devices they'd found in Octavius' dwelling, careful to disturb nothing. Every now and then, the moving picture on the disk would change, reflecting the passage of hours in Sarpeidon's past as well as in their own present.
"As best I can determine, it works something like a transporter, only with a range Starfleet technicians can scarcely comprehend," Michaela Taylor said at last. "Instead of reassembling particles directly from platform to surface, it directs them through some kind of temporal conduit, possibly wormholes or artificial ducts they've placed at strategic locations. My guess is that it's so instantaneous that it would seem like stepping through a portal."
Spock turned over one of several unusual wristbands they had discovered in a jewelry box at the back of the cabinet. "Then perhaps this is used not only as an activation device, but also to compensate for bodily distortions. The Sarpeids knew that without preparation, transport through the Atavachron would result in death."
"The same technology was probably modified to that end. Some sort of implant, maybe."
"Then I suggest we find a way to initiate a transport of our own. Since we have not disturbed the disc, I should be able to enter the past shortly after he did. Perhaps I will be early enough to prevent him from doing damage to the timeline-or to himself."
Taylor glanced back at the disk, where the image was fading with the onset of twilight. "He must have been there several days already. We'll have to work quickly. Since we have more than one wristband at our disposal, we could take one of them apart and try to identify its components. It would be a start, at least."
Spock handed her the wristband. "Agreed."
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The day he spent hidden away in Atoz's secret book depository would have been altogether miserable if he hadn't been too weak to do anything but browse the dusty pages. By the time Atoz returned with his evening meal in a basket, he supposed he knew almost as much about Sarpeid culture and history as his mother did. He only hoped he'd have the opportunity to impress her with his erudition someday.
"You're looking much better," the young man told him cheerfully, spreading out the provisions he'd smuggled in. "I always suspected that the information to be found in my books is as valuable as anything a modern healer can offer. You may attribute your rapid recovery to a poultice recipe I found in a text dating from my great-grandfather's era."
"I'll remember that." Jarrod touched his wounded side. The flesh was still tender under the bandage, but Atoz didn't notice his wince of pain. "Atoz, I do appreciate the way you've hidden me, and at great risk to yourself. But you know I can't stay here much longer. It's only a matter of time before Zor Khan realizes that this place exists, or has you followed here. As you said yourself, I'm nearly healed."
"Well, where will you go? I must tell you that you can no longer count on Milos and his cousins to help you. All of them were arrested this morning, and, if the truth be told, many in this city blame their ruin on you."
Jarrod forcibly shook off the spasm of grief that passed through him. "Actually, I want you to take me to the Atavachron. Is it under guard?"
"Only when the Tyrant is experimenting with it. The rest of the time, he expects me to watch over its only entrance. He still believes that no one knows of it, though I have done my best to enlighten those who will listen."
"Then you can take me there tonight?"
Atoz sat back, eyes narrowed in thought. "If I do," he said after a pause, "will you use it to go back where you came from?"
Jarrod looked up, almost choking on the hunk of bread he'd hastily stuffed into his mouth. "What do you mean?"
"There is no need to feign ignorance with me. It was obvious to me from the moment I began to nurse you that you are not one of us. In fact, from the moment the Tyrant showed me his device, I knew someone like you would eventually arrive. The only thing I am not sure of is whether you come from the past or the future. And I assume you cannot tell me."
"I'm glad you understand."
"I do. And as much as I would like to spend an entire day asking you questions, I realize that my very existence may depend on not only my future silence, but my present restraint."
"You really are a very wise man, Atoz. I'm older than you are, but I wish I had your sense. If I did, we would never have met. Now let me ask you something else. Take a look at this." Pulling up his sleeve, Jarrod held out the wristband for Atoz's inspection. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"
Atoz pursed his lips. "I confess I noticed it when I first took you in. Zor Khan did show me a similar mechanism once."
"I knew it," Jarrod said grimly. "Octavius was no mere observer on this world. The Atavachron-or some variation of it-does still exist in my time." He rubbed the wristband in growing agitation. Atoz held out his hand nervously.
"Do be careful, my nameless friend. If that is what I believe it to be, you would do well not to remove it, even by accident. Without it, you will revert to your true age while you are in this time. Since you have apparently not been born yet, I would not care to speculate what might become of you."
"My problem right now is that it doesn't work. Do you have the knowledge to repair it?"
"Doubtful. My understanding of the Atavachron is rudimentary at best. And I can hardly ask Zor Khan's assistance."
"That's why I need to go to the Atavachron. Maybe somehow I can figure out how to activate this thing. I'll be able to go home, and you can forget you ever saw me. Please, Atoz, take me there."
Atoz sighed. "Not now. There are too many people about. In a few hours, the Library will be deserted. I shall return for you then."
"Thank you. I'll be waiting."
Alone again, Jarrod wolfed down the rest of the food and then stretched out to rest. He suspected that a long night lay ahead of them.
With a grim expression, Spock pushed the baggy sleeve of his cloak back into place and stepped inside the curtained-off area of Octavius' dwelling. Standing in front of the cabinet, Michaela slowly rotated the disk to focus on the coordinates they'd chosen. Next, she reached for, but did not quite touch, the disassembled wristband spread out in front of her.
"I'm ready," she told him, her voice shaking a little. "At least, I think I am. We won't be sure until we attempt the transport."
"Understood. I am prepared to accept the risk. You may proceed."
"Very well." She waited as he reached up to arrange the hood that would conceal his Vulcan features from whomever he happened to meet on the other side. Just as he was about to flip it over his eyes, though, he paused to look at her.
"Admiral-if our calculations prove erroneous and I do not return, please see that Zarabeth and my surviving children are cared for."
"You know I will. But I also intend to make sure it doesn't come to that."
"In the event that you cannot, please study the chronicle I have stored in my personal database at home. If possible, I will have my fate incorporated into the historical record so that she may know what happened to me."
"It's not too late to let me go in your place. After all, this is mostly my fault. I'm the one who brought Octavius into your lives. You have no idea how deeply I regret that."
"Octavius is as skilled at deception as he is at time travel. As for my son's transgressions, I alone will bear the responsibility."
Taylor nodded. "In that case, I'll be here when you both get back."
Moments later, he was gone.
Even now, standing right in front of the Atavachron, Jarrod found it hard to accept that he was actually seeing the real thing. It seemed hardly credible that this innocuous-looking doorway had caused his mother-and him, and countless others-a lifetime of hideous nightmares.
Unfortunately, nothing else about it was any easier to comprehend. The controls Atoz pointed out to him bore little, if any, resemblance to anything he'd seen during his abortive career in Starfleet, much less to Octavius' defective wristband. Not for the first time, he faced the dreadful possibility that he might never be able to return home.
"What is it you hope to learn here?" Atoz asked while he examined the room in silent desperation.
"I'm not sure," Jarrod confessed. "I thought perhaps I would know when I saw it. But I don't recognize anything here."
Just then, a shuffling sound from the hall turned Atoz's cheeks even paler than usual. "Zor Khan's guards," he whispered. "We must go."
Wildly, the two of them looked around for an escape route. The only possibility Jarrod could see was the Atavachron itself, an option that seemed riskier than capture. In any case, they had no time to choose, much less prepare, a destination.
Thinking fast, he turned from the portal and crossed the room toward Atoz. The smaller man looked startled as Jarrod locked an arm around his throat and pulled him into a mock chokehold.
"Forgive me, Atoz," he said under his breath as the door slid open behind them. "This is for your own protection."
He turned to meet the three sentries who burst into the room, their daggers drawn. Zor Khan himself rushed in behind them, flushed with excitement.
"That is the assassin Milos sent," he announced. "Take him into custody at once!"
"Stay away," Jarrod shouted, dragging Atoz into the corner. "Come closer and I will break his neck."
"Take him alive." Zor Khan motioned to his guards, who fanned out in a triangular formation. "Whether Atoz lives or dies is of no concern to me."
They converged on him quickly, ruthlessly. Jarrod had just enough time to push Atoz to safety before a numbing blow to the side of his head, and another to his side, flung him to the polished floor. All three guards pinned him down while Zor Khan bent and tore open his shirt, revealing the jagged wound left by the bottle shards.
"This is indeed the man who attacked me. Confine him with the others until I decide what manner of execution would serve him best."
On his way out of the room, Zor Khan detoured to the spot where Atoz still lay, huddled and speechless with shock.
"Fortunately, your captor was an even greater coward than you are," he snarled. "One day, Atoz, your weakness really will cost you your miserable life."
Before he turned to follow his soldiers, the Tyrant paused to deliver a vicious kick to the librarian's face.
The morning sky shone a somber grey, the clouds heavy and jagged like stones. Despite the uncongenial weather, however, the city's entire population seemed to have emerged from their dwellings and flooded the streets. They moved toward the marketplace in sullen groups, most of them staring straight ahead without expression. Only the few who walked alone, mostly older people or those carrying merchants' satchels, dared to sneak the occasional sidelong glance at the others. No one paid the cloaked stranger any particular attention as he drifted among them.
Spock soon fell into step beside a diminutive white-haired man whose sharp blue eyes scanned the crowd with obvious distaste.
"May I inquire where everyone is going?" he asked, prompting the old man to look at him as if he were mad.
"Clearly you are not native to this city, or you would know all too well."
"I arrived only this morning. It has been many years since my last visit, and I fear I am unfamiliar with current customs."
"If spectacles like this come to be regarded as custom, we are all certainly done for," the man scoffed. He squinted up at the hood that obscured most of Spock's face. "You'll need to mind every word you say while you're within the city walls, I can tell you that. Perhaps you think your sacred orders will protect you, but the truth is that Zor Khan fears neither gods nor mortals now. You'd best come along with the rest of us."
"Unfortunately, you have not yet enlightened me as to our destination."
"Can't you guess? There's to be an execution in the square. Attendance is mandatory. You'd better not be caught walking the other way, Brother, or you will join those unfortunate souls on the scaffold."
"Who is he?"
"He is Milos, son of Adon, once a well regarded member of the Prefect's most select guard, now a most discouraging case of courage misapplied." The old man sighed. "You can be certain his end will not be dignified. Yet in some ways, I think Milos and his cousin Boroc are more fortunate than the rest of the conspirators. All of us have heard strange tales, of exiles to lands so inhospitable that even their slow, public deaths would be less painful. But what can we do to help them? To speak out against the Tyrant's methods is enough to warrant arrest...or worse."
"I see." They had almost reached the designated site; under the shadow of the scaffold, the crowd became thicker, rowdier. Presently the man he'd been walking beside was drawn away by the surge of bodies. No one tried to stop him as he slipped away and took refuge in the courtyard of a modestly sized townhouse. Ahead of him lay the public square, with Zor Khan's sentries posted at intervals of twenty meters or so. Despite their orderly formation, Spock soon discerned that their approach to crowd control was intuitive, at best. As the number of spectators rapidly swelled, the attentions of the inexperienced guards grew fragmented enough that he was able to slip away in the opposite direction.
There, rising sleek and white above the orderly rows of houses, stood the Library. Cryptic as his son's mind could be at times, Spock knew he would eventually have reached the Atavachron-either by choice or compulsion.
Logic suggested that he begin his search there.
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Left to himself in a clean but windowless cell without furniture, clocks, or even a scheduled meal, Jarrod couldn't really be sure how many hours had passed since his arrest. The wound in his side, which Atoz had tended so carefully, opened up again and began to fester. The more he tried to ignore it, the more insistently the agony gnawed at his flesh. Pain control was just one more Vulcan ability he'd never bothered to take seriously, much less cultivate. Only now did he realize that he'd never really experienced true suffering before.
The ache behind his ribs had become almost unbearable by the time Zor Khan's guards returned. Rough hands pulled him off the polished floor and then pushed him back onto his knees. Moments later, the Tyrant himself strode into the cell.
"He's been remarkably quiet, my lord," the taller guard reported, barely suppressing a smirk. "Been thinking about his crimes, no doubt. This might be the best time to apply torture, if your lordship wishes it."
"I do not," Zor Khan said emphatically. "How often must I repeat that I do not approve of torture as a means of gathering information? Even you know that those in torment will say whatever they think will ease their suffering, whether the information is reliable or not. In any case, there is nothing he can tell us that I have not already learned and dealt with. Milos and Boroc are dead, and those meddlesome old fools who spawned them have been dispatched to places where they will never be found. The only question that remains is what I should do with this traitorous wretch." Raising one foot, Zor Khan placed the sole of his booted foot squarely over the center of Jarrod's chest. "Circumstances suggest that you did not follow Milos of your own volition. If your words are sufficiently eloquent, I might be inclined to spare you. So, will you beg for your life?"
Even the simple effort of lifting his head caused a rush of pain that almost caused Jarrod to black out. Somehow, he managed to meet Zor Khan's gaze and hold it.
There were many details about her ordeal on Sarpeidon that his mother had never shared with him. One thing, however, she had made clear. Members of the House of Jaryd never pleaded.
"I will not."
To his surprise, he saw not contempt in the Tyrant's narrowed black eyes, but an ambiguous emotion that more closely resembled fear.
"Very well. As it happens, I would have preferred to grant you the less painful alternative, but I am not foolish enough to make a martyr of you." Removing his foot, Zor Khan turned and gestured to his sentries. "We shall transport him along with the others. Take him to the preparation area. He will meet an old friend there-perhaps the last friend he will ever see in this lifetime. It will be up to him to make the most of his last hours on this world as we know it."
The Library doors yielded quickly to the tiny electronic disrupter Spock had brought with him. He barely had time to palm it before a huddled form stirred beside one of the bookcases, then jumped up in a panic.
He was disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to see that it was not Jarrod but another young man, of similar age and build-and curiously familiar.
"You are Atoz," he said, staring at the unlined but unmistakable face of a man who, thirty years earlier, had been as old as Spock probably seemed to him now.
"Yes, but what are you doing here, monk?" the man blurted nervously. "You nearly frightened me to death. I thought you were one of Zor Khan's guards."
"I did not expect to find anyone here. There is a mandatory event in the public square."
"You needn't remind me of that. And I need not mention that that you are not there, either. The punishment would be the same for either of us-sacred orders or not."
Spock discreetly moved his head so that the low-hanging cowl obscured even more of his face.
"There is little I can do to assist the condemned. However, I understand that other prisoners remain within these walls. It is my intention to counsel them before they are sentenced."
"Their plight moves you, I suppose?" Atoz shrugged away his defensive posture. "I confess that it moves me as well. However, merely to utter those words is tantamount to suicide as things stand now."
"In the square, I heard about a young man, a stranger, who rather foolishly embroiled himself in Milos' plan to assassinate the Tyrant. Do you know what became of him?"
"Why, yes-you must mean the nameless, odd-looking fellow who believed he could attack the Ty-er, the Sovereign in his bedchamber and get away with it. A strange situation. The majority are unsure whether he is the bravest man in the city, or merely the most delusional."
"That sounds very much like the individual I seek. Where is he?"
Atoz bowed his head. "Alas, his confidence in himself was too great. He was arrested right here, in the Library, only hours ago. His timing was most unfortunate. Zor Khan plans to transport him along with the others."
"You mean he is to be sent to the Atavachron? When?"
"Whenever Zor Khan deems it most convenient, I suppose. There is no longer any such thing as due process in this realm. In theory, he could dispatch half the city in one night if it pleased him to do so. Let us hope the notion never occurs to him."
"Atoz, will you take me to him? You, who know this Library like no other, must have some idea where he is being held."
"I have a fair idea. But you know that if you are caught dispensing more than spiritual advice to the prisoners, you will join them in the preparation chamber. The same goes for me, if they find out that I have assisted you."
"Your participation in the matter will be revealed to no one. I give you my word."
"Common sense suggests that I refuse." Atoz paced the length of the nearest bookcase, then returned to lean against it with his arms folded. "Still...very few people care for strangers more than they care for their own lives. You are apparently the second such man I have met in the space of three days. My shame at my own lack of courage would only be greater if I failed to help you as I helped him. Perhaps this time, I will not fail as grievously as I did then. Come quickly, before someone happens upon us."
Despite Zor Khan's prediction, Argus did not look upon Jarrod as an old friend when they were thrown together in a much smaller, and much dingier, cell to wait out the hours before transport. Instead, looking haggard and half-mad with anguish and physical torment, he attacked with the fury of a madman.
"I don't have much strength left," he snarled as he wrapped both hands around Jarrod's throat and began to squeeze without mercy, "but I swear I'll use what remains to choke the breath out of you."