Riker awoke in stygian darkness. No light, no sound, no motion, betrayed the solidity of the blackness. The throbbing in his head made him groan aloud, the hollow sound of his voice muted by the closeness of the walls around him. Slowly, not wanting to jar his aching head, he reached out to touch the wall nearest his arm. At the same time, he stretched his legs, only to find, there was nowhere to stretch. The walls were coarse, slightly curved, and he thought with a churning fear in his stomach, precisely the same as the chambers he had examined earlier with Abruzzi. Except this cubicle had no entrance, and no seam where an entrance had been. It was more tightly closed than a tomb, and Riker had to fight the flush of panic that welled up his spine.
Taking care not to bang uselessly about, he sat upright in the cocoon like space. Feeling as far as he could, he confirmed his earlier fear. He was in an enclosure like the ones the geologic team had been analyzing. Then, if that were the case, there should be an opening at the lower comer. He shifted, feeling cautiously until his hand found the open space he was looking for. It was roughly the circumference of his leg. He hesitated. His mind conjuring all the terrifying images he'd ever dreamt of as a child, things creeping from dark holes at night, being inextricably caught in a trap from which he couldn't escape as death and destruction bore down on him.
He shuddered, then shoved the fears aside, unfounded fears for the most part, born of the overactive imagination of a young boy who escaped all too often into the fantasy lands of his mother's library. There was no evidence of any life on this planetoid, and yet, he remembered something firmly wrapped around his leg right before he fell the second time.
With exaggerated caution, Riker slid his arm into the opening, half-expecting it to be caught in a viselike grip, or severed in relentless jaws. Instead, he found cool stone, smoother than the walls of his prison, and faintly moist. But there were no monsters, no bestial maws. He laughed slightly, feeling foolish for his fears. Strange how a knock on the head can cause you to revert to your childhood, he thought. Yet, there was nothing amusing in his current predicament. He appeared to be hopelessly trapped and wondered how long it would take anyone to realize he was missing.
Leaning against the coarse stone, Riker knew he needed to think clearly. Despite his present predicament, there appeared to be a fresh supply of breathable air. Think out your options, he told himself grimly. The first rule is knowing your options.
Option one, he thought, starve to death. Riker laughed at the mental imp that was determined to undermine his control.
Realistically, he acknowledged the dryness of his throat and the gnawing emptiness in his middle. Not only was he foolish enough to become trapped, he was foolish enough to do it without a survival kit.
Option two, figure out a way to penetrate the interference caused by the heavy metal deposits in the surrounding rock so he could contact the Enterprise. Not likely. Tapping his combadge lightly, he was relieved to hear the delicate tinkling of the activated mechanism, but once again his attempt at communication was answered by white noise. Still, he decided to test it at regular intervals.
Option three, Deanna? He had, on occasion, been able to contact her mentally. She was more aware of what went on inside his head than he cared to admit, but even her range of sensitivity was limited. Those moments when she had reached out to him, or he to her, had been moments of intense, life-threatening emotion. And although he felt stifled, he had not let himself feel the panic edging in on the borders of his forced calm. Deanna? He reached out tentatively. Deanna. Imzadi? Can you hear me? Dear God, Deanna, are you there?
Riker did not remember dozing off, but he had, and he awoke with a start. Had he heard the sound of weight dragging across stone, or had it been the last vestige of a dream? He rubbed his fists against the grittiness of his eyes, and fervently wished he could see, something-a faint glow, a luminescent shimmer - anything. There was a persistent ache in his skull that made concentrating difficult. Shifting his position to ease the cramped muscles of his legs and back, he hoped to work the ache out of his body and his spirit. As he did, his leg brushed against something and sent it skittering against a wall. Reaching cautiously sideways, he contacted a gelatinous mass; cool to the touch, and smelling faintly floral.
Cradling the mass gingerly, Riker wondered what it was and who or what had left it here. He thought of the opening in the cave floor. This placed an entirely new angle on his predicament. Was he a captive, a pet, an animal in a zoo? He remembered Abruzzi's nagging feeling. Did some form of life inhabit these honeycombed tunnels? If so, was there a chance he could communicate with it?
Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by an intense feeling of hunger and the almost instinctive knowledge that what he held in his hands was safe to eat. He stabbed at it with his fingers, remembering the look of delight he had seen on three-year-old Kereela Austin's face the first time she discovered a gelatinous dessert her mother had placed before her. Riker smiled. There was, most definitely, no way in hell, to eat the stuff politely with one's fingers. Stabbing tentatively at the substance again, he broke off a tiny bit and tasted it. It was faintly salty, in contrast to its fragrance, but cool. It eased the ache of his dry throat and, though light in physical substance, it alleviated the intense hunger he felt. When he finished, he turned so he lay on the floor near the hole in the rear, and spoke softly, "There, whoever or whatever you are, I ate it like a good boy. Now how about showing yourself." His answer was silence. "Well then, I'll wait." He settled back against the wall. It appeared there was little else he could do.
Clawing his way through the hazy depths of sleep, Riker was engulfed by a gnawing agony of hunger. The feeling was so sudden and intense it startled and confused him. He tried to move and found himself immobilized, his left arm pinned to his side and his legs held tightly together. Jerking against the force that held him, he groped in the darkness with his free arm and contacted...God, what is it? Coarse to the touch like a cat's tongue, cool and dry, it constricted tighter around him. He fought with all his strength, futilely in the cramped darkness, as the tentacle tightened, adhering to his uniform and his flesh where it was exposed through torn fabric. He wanted to scream, and perhaps he did, mentally, reaching out in his desperate fear to the one mind that might help him. "Imzadi?" The endearment and Deanna Troi's dark beauty flashed through his mind. "Dear God, Imzadi, can you hear?"
As quickly as the presence had appeared, it released him. He heard again, without doubt now, the rasping sound of a weight dragged across the stone floor of his cell. Then there was silence. With it had gone the gnawing hunger. Riker breathed in ragged gasps, terror pounding in his heart. If he wasn't a pet or a zoo animal, it appeared as though he might just be food. He sat up, gingerly feeling his arms and legs. Nothing was broken, but he felt bruised, as though the creature had tried to absorb him. Time stopped in the weighted darkness as he strained his ears to detect the slightest sound. The air was fetid with his own sweat and his frantic exhalations. He forced himself to breathe easily, so he could hear some noise besides his own bodily functions.
Something prodded the bottom of his foot. His first instinct was to withdraw, but there was nowhere to retreat to. Instead, he lunged forward, grabbing at whatever it was. He found himself with a handful of sinuous terror, and as he contacted the coarse flesh, he once again was assaulted by ravenous hunger, realizing it was not his, but its.
The creature broke his tenuous hold, and once again vanished. Riker slammed his fist into the unyielding rock, frustrated and angry. There was nothing left but to continue to play an interminable waiting game, and hope whatever his apparent captor was, it chose to return while he was still alive enough to deal with it.
The waiting ended more quickly than he had expected. Sitting motionless in the darkness, unable to completely stretch in any direction, straining his ears for the faintest sound, he was rewarded several hours later with the dragging noise he associated with the arrival of his visitor. He forced himself to remain utterly motionless, though every fiber wanted to avoid whatever it was. Aching, under stimulated senses reached through the blackness to touch, discover, and analyze this alien. Then, ever so faintly, he felt a nudge at his foot. He remained immobile until the nudge became more insistent. Then, reaching out his hand, palm upward, he felt a tentative touch, and a jolt of intense longing, a hunger that made him gasp with surprise.
Startled, Riker withdrew his hand, and felt the other withdraw as well. He did not want to convey an aura of revulsion for he did not feel revolted; simply startled by the violence of emotion projected each time his captor touched him. Taking the initiative, he stretched out his hand again, attempting to project calm thoughts. "I was surprised," he said aloud at the same time. "I'm not used to communicating this way, any more than you are. Come back, and I promise I'll sit still."
Riker felt a touch of humor about his predicament, the first glimmer of hope he'd felt since he landed in this hole. He had no idea what he was dealing with, but he instinctively knew that he had no reason to fear it. During their brief but violent first contact he had come to realize that it was, in some measure, sentient. They seemed to come to the same conclusion simultaneously, and when it touched him again, he knew with startling clarity, that it was as curious as he. A broad, thick tentacle gently brushed against his thigh, and then the probing tip settled a gift in his outstretched hand. It was another ball of the gelatinous substance he had found earlier.
"Peace offering?" Riker asked, and felt a slight prod of response. "I'm sorry. I wish I could reciprocate, but I have nothing to offer." As the limb brushed against him an agony of hunger burned across his mind. A third time it touched him, as though asking permission. Nestling the ball of gelatin in his other hand, Riker extended his open palm. The tentacle wrapped gently around his wrist and arm.
Riker was overwhelmed by a sudden apprehension. Had he been a fool and fallen for a trap after all? He felt the tentacle adhere leechlike to his arm and he jerked backward, forcefully breaking the grip once again, only to find that the tentacle did not withdraw, but deposited a second gelatinous mass into his palm. It was a peace offering. Whatever it was, it was trying to feed him and asking for the same in return.
"Damn," he muttered. He had not planned on being dinner. Riker reached slowly towards the stationary limb, he touched it gently, felt the chill flesh quiver, and was struck by an overwhelming craving so intense it was more than a physical longing for sustenance. He pulled his hand back, suppressing the shiver that crawled up his spine. As he did so, the sensation of despair passed.
Aware of what to expect, he reached forward again, willing himself not to withdraw from the touch, either mentally or physically. His hand rested on the rough surface, caressing it gently, trying to convey open acceptance. Again, he was bombarded by a barrage of feelings, familiar and yet as alien as his companion.
Placing his other hand along the cool flank of his visitor, he bent so he could rest his cheek against its hide, emptying his mind, opening it as Troi had tried to teach him so many years ago, to the thoughts of Arrahla. Riker lifted his head in surprise. A name, whether of the individual or the race, he could not be sure, and the name hadn not been conveyed to him in words, but as an image. He laid his head down once more. Arrahla was sorry he had caused pain. He had not known four-limbed creatures could sense so much. Riker was struck by the intensity of the emotion perceived as a kaleidoscopic tumult of darkness and light, images without color, but which needed no verbal interpretation, a communication that was simply felt.
Carefully, Riker's left hand sought the tip of the limb upon which he had rested his head. The limb lay quietly next to him. Opening his hand, he spoke softly, "Peace offering." This time he allowed the tentacle to adhere to his arm and did not withdraw, though every fiber of his being screamed for him to do so. Allowing Arrahla to feed conjured old nightmares that reeked of dark magic and vampirism, yet he sensed no malice in Arrahla's touch. There was a gentle sucking sensation, his panic dissolved, and he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace. The gnawing ache in his middle, that was not his hunger, abated.
Flushed and sated, Riker fought the urge to drowse. Opening his mind to Arrahla's thoughts and trying to form mental questions of his own, he thought of his precipitous arrival here, of Abruzzi's death, his home on the Enterprise. In return, he received a confusion of imagery, most darkly alien, but the emotions were startlingly familiar. He sensed aloneness, sorrow and vast age. Riker was most intrigued by the latter because it was presented to him as the creation of the planetoid he was entombed in, cubicle by cubicle, each requiring many years to form. Abruzzi's notion of the chambered nautilus wasn't as far from the truth as she had assumed.
Curious about his own captivity, Riker was rewarded with distinct images of the passageway he and Abruzzi had traveled before they had fallen. He felt again, the dizzying descent to the bottom of the hidden shaft and could see the corridor leading to his current cell, though he had been unconscious when he had been brought here. It was the only clear image he received, before Arrahla's thoughts became a dark muddle. Arrahla was suddenly distracted. Riker would have called him worried had he chosen to assign a Human reaction to the state of his thoughts. Then he sensed, almost heard, the searchers looking for him above and his own heart leapt with hope. He reached out, as he had done earlier, to the one mind he hoped he could touch. Imzadi. Deanna! He felt as though his cry echoed through the darkened passageways. Desperately, he called out again. All the sadness and longing of his alien companion surged into the mental call.
Then he could feel her here with him, her mind sparkling dear, like fine wine. But the interpretation was that of Arrahla and he felt the alien's pleasure at touching her consciousness.
"Help me get back to my ship," Riker said through the anxious tightness in his throat, "and perhaps we can help you." But Riker knew it was already too late Arrahla was very old and he was dying. The pressure on his numbed arm eased. Quietly, Arrahla withdrew. Riker tried desperately to hold on to the tentacle, but no physical strength could have held it He wanted to express his gratitude, to offer his help again, but it was as though a wall had closed on Arrahla's mind, a wall as dense as the impenetrable darkness. Dropping to his stomach near the opening at the back of his cell, Riker called down the tube, "Arrahla!" But his voice was lost in the hollow emptiness.
"Three cc's of metrazine. He has a hairline skull fracture and we need to stabilize his vitals as quickly as possible. I need a neck brace, and a sterile field on this arm. Damn. It looks like it's been flayed then dehydrated. It'll hurt like hell if he regains consciousness."
"Doesn't hurt at all," Riker mumbled. He was confused, disoriented, his head pounding, his tongue thick and swollen with thirst.
"Don't try to talk, Commander. Save your strength. We'll have you back to the ship in no time."
Where the hell am I? Riker thought through the drugs working their magic on his aching skull. No, this is wrong!
"Abruzzi is dead, Doctor," said another, younger voice. "She appears to be in the same condition as the commander's arm, only more extensive."
"And that, I don't understand," Crusher muttered. "A fall down a shaft wouldn't do that, and there is nothing detectable in the atmosphere that would cause such a reaction. It's as though all the water and essential nutritive elements had been sucked right out through her skin. Place her in a stasis field and return her to the Enterprise. Have Doctor Angola start an autopsy ASAP. We may need the information to treat Commander Riker. We don't know if this is a chemical reaction or environmental. Still no life sign readings, Ensign?"
"None, Doctor. No life signs, not even viral or bacterial. The planetoid appears to be completely sterile."
"Then we will be able to transport Commander Riker directly to Sickbay as soon as he stabilizes. The metrazine is starting to work."
"Arrahla," Riker forced through parched lips. "Arrahla.";
"Take it easy, Will." Riker felt a comforting touch on his shoulder, and the warm mental presence he knew so well.
"Deanna." His words felt leaden, slurred by medication and by the abominable ache in his skull. "You can sense him can't you?"- .. .
"Who, Will?" Deanna brushed the hair back from his forehead.
"Arrahla He's here. He kept me alive. He did this to my arm and to..." Riker shuddered at the implication. "And to Abruzzi. He was hungry. But he fed me. Can't you sense him?"
"No, Will. I don't detect any life forms."
"But he's here," Riker half rose from the pallet he lay on, wincing at the throbbing pain still undimmed by the metrazine. "He's here. He kept me alive. I didn't dream it. Look at my arm."
"Lay down, Commander," Crusher said firmly. "It took us three days to locate you. You've a serious head injury and have probably been unconscious for most of the last three days. If you don't relax and let me do my job, I'll be forced to sedate you."
"But there is a life form on this planet, Doctor," Riker insisted.
"And head injuries can sometimes cause delusions, Commander." Crusher's voice had assumed an icy, no-nonsense tone.
"Deanna?" Riker turned toward her. "He's telepathic. A touch telepath, but very powerful. You have to be able to read something."
"I'm sorry, Will, I can't sense any sentient beings here."
"All right," Crusher interrupted, "the sooner we get Will back to the ship, the better, Deanna. Activate the homing beacon, Ensign. The commander and I are beaming directly to Sickbay. You will follow."
"No," Riker began to protest, as the gentle pressure of a hypospray hissed against his neck. "Arrahla..." he whispered.
Deanna Troi watched the iridescent shimmer of the transport effect engulf Will Riker and Beverly Crusher. She was totally in tune with Riker's emotional state as he drifted into unconsciousness. The desperate need for her to believe him was foremost in his thoughts. She could not deny that she had been startled by the strength of the mental contact that had led her and the search party to Riker. The naked, primal emotion she had sensed in the telepathic cry had been inhuman in its intensity. The psychologist in her had logically explained the call for help as the incoherent ravings of a badly injured Human. So why did she sit here now, waiting in the black silence?
"Because I believe you, Will, and because you believe in this Arrahla. But I cannot sense him as you did, as you wish me to do." There was only emptiness. In the vast, complex warren of caverns that had engulfed and almost destroyed Will Riker, that had destroyed Evlin Abruzzi, she waited. But there appeared to be nothing waiting with her.
Sighing, she activated the homing mechanism that would alert the transporter room of her location and return her to the Enterprise. The silence had become tangible and she wanted to be away. She would be needed when Riker awoke. As the first wave of molecular disassociation tingled through her, she heard a distant whisper of farewell.
The End
