Chapter 3
A little yelp woke Malcolm. He blinked around, remembering once again where he was. His host was sitting cross-legged on a little stool at the table. She was shaking her hand, then as he watched, stuck the tip of her index finger in her mouth.
"You ok?" He called over, a bit groggily.
She started, looking over at him. He could now see that his breastplate was sitting on her lap. She quickly set it back on the table and hurried over. She poured another glass of tea and offered it to him. He reached out, then sighed, remembering the bandages.
Seeing his problem, she set aside the cup and reached over, grabbing a shallow bowl and a sealed jar-like container. She removed the wrapping from around the top of the container, and pulled out the cork, then reached out, indicating he should let her take his hand. "Is tomorrow." She said carefully.
He held it out for her, and she began to gently unwrap his hand. When the last of the wrapping came away there was a great deal of damp, spongy herbs packed around it. She carefully removed them and set them aside.
He flexed his fingers. The skin was a raw looking pink, and stung as the air hit it.
She pulled over a shallow bowl and took ahold of his wrist, holding the hand over the bowl. She then carefully lifted the jar and poured what looked like regular water over his hand. It tingled strangely, but the stinging and redness went away as quickly as if it had simply washed off.
He examined the hand as she repeated the process on the other. Upon closer observation, there seemed to be a slightly oily substance still clinging to his skin.
She had just handed him his tea when a loud booming sounded from the door. She jumped and her head whipped towards the door. A loud, growling voice called in and her eyes went wide with unmistakable fear.
She sprang up, practically leaping over to the table. She snatched her coat off one of the chairs and threw it over the gathered items. She looked around, panicked as the voice sounded again, followed by another round of pounding.
Malcolm looked around, making sure there wasn't any electronics near him. The translator was gone, and he could see nothing else that needed hidden. He set aside the tea and pulled the blanket up a bit more self-consciously.
She was hesitantly approaching the door. For the first time he noticed the three stout planks of wood that had been set into brackets at the top, middle and bottom of the door. The voice outside silenced as she shifted the planks out of the way noisily.
She took a bracing breath, then turned the little latch in the door, opening it. A gust of freezing air and snow howled into the small house, and when the door was finally shut again, a truly imposing figure stood there.
It surveyed him across the room in stony silence before pulling up the fur face mask. Malcolm found he quite preferred the ominous, slit eyed mask. The man who stared back at him looked grizzled and scarred, his left eye milky and obviously blind. Even without seeing him out of his coat, he could tell this man truly was quite large. His hands alone looked like he could have picked up a watermelon single handed.
When he finally released Malcolm from his penetrating gaze, he glanced over at the woman. He growled what sounded like an accusatory question at her.
She drew herself up straighter and answered him in an even tone.
An argument quickly ensued. The man looked highly agitated, combing the room with his good eye. He paused mid-sentence, peering at something in the corner. He went over and grabbed it up. Malcolm belatedly realized his environmental suit was sitting on top of the stack of his clothes.
As the hulking man picked up the suit, the phase pistol came free and clattered to the floor. There was a dead silence for a moment. The man bent down and plucked up the pistol.
He turned on the woman and roared at her angrily. When she replied, it was in a high pitched, terrified voice. He shook the pistol at her, then tossed it to the ground, shrieking at her in fury, hand waving in Malcolm's direction.
Malcolm watched, unsure if he should try to intervene.
She tried to reason with him, but he just roared and backhanded her with the force of a sledge hammer. She was tossed like a ragdoll against the shelf behind her. Before she had a hope of recovering, his huge hand was around her neck in a flash of movement, lifting her off her feet and holding her against the wall.
Malcolm was up and running towards him in an instant. He wasn't sure what he could do, but was not about to stand by and watch this.
The man saw him coming and literally tossed the woman at him. Malcolm caught her, but was borne to the floor by her momentum. He sprawled beneath her, but quickly spotted his discarded pistol. He reached over and snatched it up, bringing it to bear on the man as he approached.
The man stopped, eyeing the pistol warily. He may never have seen one before, but he recognized the look of a man bearing a weapon. They eyed eachother tensely for a long moment.
With a snort of disgust, the man turned and left.
Malcolm gently shifted the woman off of him and hurried over to the door, forcing it shut against the gale force winds. Much to his surprise, each of the beams used to 'lock' it weighed at least a hundred pounds. With some effort, he worked them all back into place, then turned and hurried back over to the woman.
She was curled in a little ball on the floor where he'd left her. She was sobbing weakly, struggling to draw breath.
He turned her over and gently examined her. She just lay there, letting him. A deep purple had started to appear over almost her entire throat, and there was a reedy quality to her breathing that spoke of deeper damage. He noted the thin trickle of bright turquoise from her mouth near the purpling that had started there.
He gently felt up the back of her neck for any dislocation or breaks in the spinal column... when his fingers slid through the hair on the back of her head, they came back covered in that same bright turquoise.
"Oh God..." He muttered fearfully. He didn't have any functional medical equipment, and the damage looked far too extensive for the herbal treatments that seemed to be the extent of the medical science here.
He looked up as Ooroko hurried up, sniffing the woman anxiously. The creature looked almost frantic. She reached up and touched it's head, trying to calm it, but couldn't manage to get her voice to work.
It looked up at him and made an odd squeaking noise, then scampered across to table and slipped under the draping coat.
The woman grabbed his arm firmly, then pointed after the creature. As Malcolm looked up, he heard an odd banging sound from under the table.
He stood and crossed the room, taking ahold of the small table, and carefully moving it aside. Underneath was Ooroko, trying with all its might to lift a trap door.
Malcolm took ahold of the edge and lifted it open. There was a waft of strangely scented warm, moist air. He tried to peer into the dark depths, but couldn't make out more than a meter or so of an ancient looking, rough hewn set of stairs leading downwards.
He looked up as Ooroko hurried over again, holding a small jar half full of liquid. It looked like it was carved quartz or perhaps crude glass. As he watched, the creature opened a compartment on the top of the lid and pulled out what looked like a seed with it's tiny fingers. It shut the compartment, lifted the lid and dropped it in the liquid. The seed started to glow, then burst into flame, burning brightly as it bobbed on the surface of the liquid.
Ooroko went down the first couple steps into the underground passage, then stopped, looking back at him expectantly.
Malcolm hurried back over to the woman. "Is there something that will help you down there?" he asked.
She still couldn't manage to get her voice to work, but she mouthed 'yes'. He gingerly picked her up, then carried her across the room, following Ooroko's bobbing light.
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Hoshi smacked her palm on the edge of her console, "I had him!" she said in frustration.
T'Pol hurried over. "Are you sure it was him?"
Hoshi was tapping away at her console, trying to to get the signal back. "Yes, definitely human..." She sighed and sat back, letting T'Pol have a look.
T'Pol looked up after a minute, then looked over at Hoshi. "Good work Ensign. Now that we know the general area, we can narrow the search." She stood up straight, looking down at Hoshi's dejected look. "He is alive. That is more than we knew before." she said in an almost consoling tone.
Hoshi sighed and went back to scanning as T'Pol left.
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T'Pol looked Archer over as he slept. "Any progress doctor?" she asked without looking up.
Phlox sighed, "Not much I'm afraid. The toxin is still hampered, but it is slowly beginning to spread... and all of my attempts to extract or eliminate it have failed. I have even tried leeches... they all died before they had drawn enough to be helpful at all... Perhaps if I knew a bit more about the local plants and animals it would give me a better idea of how to come at this problem..."
"I have already transferred full access to all research files on this planet to the crew." She replied, then glanced up. "Would it be alright to wake him? He wanted to be advised of any new information when it became available."
"Of course, just try not to keep him up very long. I will be looking over that information if you need me." He said with a slight bow of his head, then headed off.
"Captain." She said loudly, reaching out and gently shaking his shoulder.
He started, and then groaned at the sudden movement.
She quickly pulled her hand away, "Forgive me Captain, I didn't mean to startle you."
He sighed and settled back. "Not your fault... Bad dream..." he said, closing his eyes. He rubbed his hand over his face, then looked over, suddenly realizing who she was. "Have you found him?" he asked urgently.
"Not exactly... but we did get a momentary reading on him through a break in the interference. He is alive, and his life signs seemed strong and stable..."
Archer looked as if a huge burden had been lifted off his shoulders. "Where is he?"
T'Pol hesitated, then said, "That may be our biggest problem... he appears to be in the village."
"The village?" Archer said, starting to rise slightly.
T'Pol quickly put her hand on his chest and pushed him unceremoniously back down. "The outskirts, but yes, definitely the village."
"But I thought you said they kill strangers on sight?"
Another pause. "According to the records, yes. I cannot explain it."
"Could he be hiding in a barn or something?"
"No. Other than the fact that he was given a direct order to avoid the area, which I do not believe Mr. Reed would voluntarily disobey at any cost... he was also in very close vicinity to one of the natives."
"One of the natives?"
She gave a nod. "An injured female from the readings."
Archer mulled that over.
"We will keep close surveillance on the area in case there are further breaks in the interference, but I believe it would pose too great a threat to Mr. Reed to attempt using the transporter in such a volatile atmosphere. We will have to return to the surface when the storm breaks if we are to have any hope of retrieving him."
She stood in silence for a moment, then she continued. "As I have already informed the doctor, I have made all research material from this planet available, so you may review it if you wish. I must warn you, their society is barbaric to say the least."
Archer gave a weak grin. "As I recall, that's what you called us too."
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