Chapter Twenty-Three
The ruined city nestled in a cleanly excavated square hole, its curving arches, tumbled walls, and narrow pillars poking out against the desert above like the bones of some giant fossilized animal.
Data and Sagebrush tore past the trail-side watering station mere moments before Kurak and her horse, winning the race, quite literally, by a nose.
Kurak swore colorfully, but took the narrow defeat with good humor, even laughing as Data and Sagebrush pranced a mock-victory lap around the brick shelter, making bows to an imaginary crowd of admirers.
"You're good," she acknowledged breathlessly as they dismounted and led their panting horses into the little rest-stop. "I would not have thought a man who has spent his life aboard starships could handle a horse so well, or a loosely packed trail like this. Not even a man who was 'constructed' rather than 'born'."
Data laughed and smiled at her.
"Captain Picard is an avid horseman," he said, giving his hot, dusty face a quick scrub with water from the pump, then offering Kurak a turn, before rinsing out and filling a couple of bowls for the horses. "I have had occasion to accompany him on trail rides in the holodeck. But, I must confess, Sagebrush is the first non-holographic horse I have come to know. When we first met, I worried how a living horse might react to an android rider. But, Sagebrush did not seem nearly as concerned as I was. And now, I think we have become good friends."
Kurak grunted, and pushed her long, wavy hair back behind her shoulders.
"After such a run, the horses should not drink too much at once," she warned as he set the bowls down. "We should let them drink a bowl each now, and another before we head back."
"Understood," he said, and gave Sagebrush a friendly pat before ducking out of the shaded shelter back into the sun.
"You know," he commented, casting his gaze out over the bent trees and sparse cacti toward the reddish mountains beyond, "this landscape is quite beautiful. When it is not attempting to kill you with ground quakes and sandstorms, of course."
He glanced and her and smiled, then took a few steps forward, opening his arms to the panorama spread out before them.
"I feel such a strong urge to paint right now!" he exclaimed, wiggling his fingers. "I must remember, if we do this again, I should pack some art supplies in my saddlebag. This whole scene - I feel as if it is calling to me! I wish to capture it all, the play of light and shadow beneath those arches, the textures of the sand and eroded stone…"
"You describe the pull of the toH be'," Kurak said, moving to stand beside him. "The 'muses' I believe you would call them. According to Klingon legend, the toH be' ignites a flame within the heart of the artist to compel her to create. At times, the compulsion becomes so strong, the artist can lose herself in the flames…even sacrificing her life for her art."
Data regarded her, then looked away, turning his gaze toward the mountains.
"The toH be' must have been present last night," he said, shifting his feet awkwardly in the sand. "Although I do not have a 'heart', per se... I believe…I felt such a flame ignite within my hydraulic positive displacement pumps…when I heard you sing…"
He swallowed, then risked a quick glance back toward her.
Kurak caught his gaze, and held it with her own steady stare.
"What do you want from me?" she said.
Data opened his mouth, then closed it again, then reached out to gently take her hand.
"I..." he started, and she raised an eyebrow, as if to coax him on.
"I would like you to give me a tour of this site," he said. "Tell me everything you think I should know about these ruins, and the symbols your friend Melinda had been working to decipher. I have been running a cipher decryption program in the back of my mind for over a day now, and I believe I would benefit greatly from viewing the inscriptions here for myself."
Kurak gave him an acknowledging nod, and moved ahead to lead the way.
Data started to release her hand, but she did not let go, squeezing firmly and giving his hand an insistent pull.
Data's eyebrows lifted in surprise.
"Stay close to me, Commander," she said. "And watch where you step."
"As you wish," he quipped, and smiled broadly, his positive displacement pumps seeming to lighten with every step they took together.
Data's tricorder hummed and buzzed as he turned a slow circle, scanning the oblong space behind and under the great arching door frame that marked the site's most ancient cluster of buildings.
"I am picking up an energy reading," he said to Kurak, who'd been peering grimly past his arm at the small screen. "It is similar to the dampening field in operation beneath the Stairway, but far less intense."
He snapped his tricorder shut and replaced it in the holster he'd attached to his belt.
"Curious. No such readings have ever been reported in any other section of these ruins. Yet, when I passed through that archway, I felt oddly dizzy. And now, we detect this field…"
"Maybe it's you, Data," Kurak said. "We know the dampening field is sensitive to machinery. And you are as advanced a machine as this galaxy has ever produced."
Data cocked an eyebrow.
"Thank you…?" he said, then smiled to let her know he was not truly offended. "But, you may be correct. My presence in the cavern beneath the Stairway caused that dampening field's strength to jump significantly. The effects were most…uncomfortable…"
Kurak frowned and paced toward the nearest wall, tracing her fingers along the rough stone until she reached the great arch.
Deep, wedge-like gouges marked the towering doorway from the ground to the (long absent) ceiling. The gouges were quite small and badly eroded, but most were recognizable as cuneiform-like symbols, interspersed here and there with carved images that had probably once been quite detailed - faces in profile and wild beasts the wind and sand had smoothed and smudged beyond any clear identification.
"I wonder…" she said. "This part of the city is nearly contemporaneous with the Stairway structure. What if…"
She turned toward Data, her eyes wide and bright.
"What did you do to cause that Preserver wall to open?" she demanded. "What were the precise sounds?"
"You wish me to play back my memory file?"
"Can you do that?" she asked curiously.
"That, and much more," he returned with a sly smirk.
Kurak rolled her eyes.
"Kahless," she grunted. "If I did not know you were a machine, I would swear you were human. All day, you have been either flirting or cracking jokes, or both, when your mind should be on the task at hand."
"I am quite capable of multitasking," he teased, and she gave him a fierce shove the android was gracious enough to pretend to stagger back from.
"All right, all right," he said laughingly. "Just, allow me to put the excerpt you are about to hear in context, before you accuse me of 'cracking' another joke."
She stepped back and gestured for him to go ahead.
"We were in that cavern under the Stairway," he said. "The dampening field had made me feel quite ill - much, much worse than the brief spate of nausea I experienced entering this room - and Commander Riker had come over to check on my status. He asked me to tell him the story of how Howard and I had escaped the electronic holding cell our Orion captors had forced us to share. And I told him I had done it - in part - by attracting the Orion guard's attention with a song. A somewhat silly, marvelously irritating song for children with the potential to repeat endlessly unless the singer stops. Riker and I were singing that song together when Counselor Troi tried to contact us on our combadges. Atmospheric interference, coupled with interference from the dampening field, made her message difficult to decipher. But, these are the sounds you will hear when I play back the file."
As Kurak watched, Data cocked his head, his mouth falling open and his amber eyes going strangely vacant as the recording played out. Once it had ended, he blinked, closed his mouth, and straightened…
Only to feel a low rumble shake the ground. Dust and sand spilled from the ruins around them and Kurak moved quickly away from the wall.
"What was that?" she demanded.
Data pulled out his tricorder, but the rumbling grew worse. Kurak backed close against him as, together, they watched the stones that made up the inner curve of the great arch slowly sink down, down into the ground, revealing two silvery panels, one on either side. The two corners nearest the archway rotated with a grinding grumble, and two more panels gleamed in the orange light of the slowly sinking sun.
Data blinked and stared from one panel to another, finally turning his awed gaze to Kurak.
"Did…did you suspect—"
"No," she said, her eyes just as wide. "Run a scan, Data - quickly! Track the energy fluctuations. We must record all we can in case this disappears again!"
"Agreed," Data said, the pair of them dashing from panel to gleaming panel.
"These symbols are very like the symbols on the Preservers' wall," Kurak observed breathlessly.
"Some are identical," Data acknowledged, scanning his eyes and his tricorder over every macro- and microscopic detail. "But this… Kurak! Kurak, look here!" he exclaimed, nearly jumping in place with excitement as she rushed to join him by the left archway panel.
"Look," he said again, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. "These symbols here - these are very like the Preserver symbols we've seen beneath the Stairway. But these…"
He indicated a patch of alien text just below the Preserver symbols.
"These seem to be a simplified…or, perhaps, more abstracted…version of these same symbols."
"Do you think it possible that the early inhabitants may have managed to adapt the Preservers' system of writing for their own use?" Kurak asked. "Or, could this be an example of a later, less formal writing style - perhaps similar to the difference between ancient High Klingon and the modern form we use today?"
"My guess would be the latter," Data said. "Especially because I rather doubt the humans who found themselves transplanted here would have been familiar with the Iconian language family."
"Iconian?"
Kurak looked down at the third, and lowest, block of text and brought a hand to her chest.
"By Kahless and all his teachings…" she gasped, clasping his arms as she fought to rein in her exhilaration. "Data… Data, do you realize what this could be…?"
"It is a key," he said, his expression practically glowing. "A key that may unlock the Preservers' written language in the same way the Rosetta Stone provided the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. And you found it, Kurak! I would never have thought to play that file in this location if not for you."
"We must contact the others," she said. "Tu'Pari will want to start work on the translation without delay… If only Melinda could have seen this! A Preserver panel bearing, not only two forms of their written symbols, but a variant of Iconian text!"
"I have some familiarity with the Iconian language family," Data said. "I am far from fluent, but there are several symbols I recognize. If I might hazard a rough translation…?"
"Go ahead," she said, and he leaned closer to the panel.
"I believe this section reads… 'Attention.' Something, something… 'official use only. Unauthorized trespass…'"
He glanced up at her, his lips quirked with amusement.
"This may have been a no entry sign! Posted here, perhaps, to limit the use of the Stairway to 'authorized' personnel." He laughed. "Incredible! This find could go a long way to proving Tu'Pari's theory that the Stairway might have served as the Preservers' equivalent of a transporter."
Kurak shook her head, and laughed a little herself.
"Of course, it would be something utterly officious and mundane," she said. "Even your touted Rosetta Stone was merely an official decree written by a group of priests to list the accomplishments of their pharaoh."
"Perhaps," he allowed. "But, by opening a path toward translation, that simple decree allowed us to peer into the minds, the thoughts and practices of an ancient civilization! To grow our understanding of our predecessors, and ourselves. What could be more wonderful?"
Kurak snorted, and regarded him closely, her dark eyes lingering on his face until his happy smile began to fade to confusion.
"What is it?" he asked.
"You are so human," she said. "Everything about you… And yet, somehow, you are unlike anyone I have ever met. You are certainly nothing like the expectation I held before you came here."
Data wrinkled his nose.
"Is that bad?"
"Not bad," she said. "Just…different…" She smiled just slightly and lifted an eyebrow. "I think I'm starting to like it."
Data's eyes widened. She leaned closer, and he mirrored her movements, feeling a draw he could only liken to a powerful magnetic force. The warmth of her face, so near his, made his sensitive skin tingle, and he felt his pulse rate rise, his eyes begin to close…
"Crusher to Data!"
The moment broke with a near-audible snap and the pair stepped quickly apart. Kurak turned without a word and strode over to inspect one of the two corner panels.
Data hesitated, uncertain, then slapped his combadge.
"Data here, Doctor," he said.
"Data, I'm sorry to interrupt your date, but we've run into a complication—" Crusher started, but Data cut her off.
"Is it the stasis field?" he asked, his anxious words practically running over each other. "Has there been a fluctuation?"
"No, no, Data, the field is functioning just fine," she said, her voice a calm contrast to his. "It's Mikey. Data… I'm afraid we're starting to see some early signs of a recurrent genetic mutation."
"The cancer?"
Crusher sighed.
"Data, I think you should come back," she said. "I don't want to go into detail over the comm. But, if what I'm seeing in these readings is what I think I'm seeing, we may have uncovered a larger problem that's just as serious. And, potentially, just as deadly."
To Be Continued...
References include - TNG: Pen Pals; Starship Mine; Peak Performance; Contagion; and The Princess Bride. :)
Thank you so much for your comments! They really help me get out of my own head and see the story from different angles, and I appreciate that more than I can say. I haven't been feeling well these past few weeks...stupid migraines and the stress of having to keep up with all my work while enduring stupid migraines... But getting your reviews today really cheered me up and encouraged me to stay up late and write another chapter for this story. Thank you! :D :D :D
Next time: Something sinister may be at work. And what of Silarra's plotting? Stay Tuned, and thanks so much for reading! :D