AN: Thanks for your patience with another slow update! Hopefully they will be more prompt in the coming weeks. I'm glad to see the last chapter brought a few Andromeda fans out of the woodwork. I love that show, and I feel it never garnered the attention it deserved. I mean, it's basically a post-apocalyptic Star Trek. What's not to love?
btw, Kati Tormis is partially named after Veljo Tormis, an Estonian choral composer I really like.
Time passed. Chekov didn't know how long he lay on the bed, staring up at the white, white ceiling, only that eventually he became aware that he was lying on a bed and staring at a ceiling, and that this was a very strange thing for him to be doing. He sat up carefully. Nothing seemed wrong with him aside from the sores that covered his arms and chest, but his whole body felt fragile and weak.
On the other bed, the dark-haired woman lay very still. Chekov called to her, then cautiously shook her shoulder, but she didn't stir. He pressed his fingers against the inside of her wrist and was relieved to feel her pulse beat strong and sure against his skin. Her face wasn't familiar. He supposed she must be one of the Vengenace crew.
The room proved to be no more responsive than his unconscious companion. The panels, although clearly part of some kind of computer system, did not respond to his touch, and the door refused to open. There were no tools, no access panels, no conduits—nothing he could use to escape or find out where he was or what had happened to the rest of his crew.
Eventually, he returned to his bed and sat, swinging his legs idly and trying to work out how long he had been gone by how hungry he was. There was a steady pulsing noise that filled the room, though it seemed to come from a great distance away. He wondered if it was some kind of machinery, or perhaps a method of marking time.
The woman woke all at once, tensing and sitting up in one movement. When she saw Chekov she rolled off the bed with her fists raised aggressively. Chekov, who had been expecting something like this, lifted his hands and showed her his palms.
"Easy! Easy!" he said.
She stopped, but still eyed him suspiciously. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"My name is Chekov," he told her. "Pavel Chekov. I am an ensign on the starship Enterprise."
"Starship..." she repeated. Her eyes swept over him, then the bed, the computer panels, the room. "What year is this?"
"Well—2259, of course."
Her restless gaze stilled. "Then it worked!" she gasped. "I thought there was no hope... But where is he? Where is Khan?"
All at once, Chekov understood. "You were in one of the cryo-tubes!" he said. "Your Khan must be John Harrison! But then you..."
He trailed off. She had been asleep for over two hundred years. She had missed Unification, first contact with the Vulcans, the creation of the Federation, and, most importantly, the events of the past few days. She was even more in the dark than he was.
And if what Admiral Marcus had said was true, she was also a genetically augmented war criminal sentenced to death.
He stared at her, wide-eyed. She had already proved herself to be volatile and dangerous. Should he try to run, call for help? But she didn't look dangerous now. She looked angry, and confused, and scared. No matter who she was, or what she had done all those centuries ago, she was still human. It seemed cruel to keep her in the dark.
So he told her what little he knew about Admiral Marcus and John Harrison. He told her about the attack on Kelvin Memorial Archive, Admiral Pike's death, and the Enterprise's secret mission. He told her about the Vengeance, the energy wave, and the array.
She silently paced the tiny room throughout his narrative, and when he was done she burst out, "Then that makes us enemies!"
"What?" Chekov stared at her with wide eyes. "No, no I don't think—"
"Oh, I think it does," she snarled. "You're trying to kill us!"
She looked like she was thinking of coming at him, so Chekov spread his hands open again. "Yes," he said. "And now that I have captured you, I will finish the job with my phaser." He checked his hands, as though surprised to find them empty. "I'm sure it's around here somewhere."
"This isn't funny!" She strode to the door and ran her fingers along the frame.
"I tried that already.," Chekov called after her.
"Well, I'm trying it again." Like Chekov had, she quickly realized there was no control panel to open the door. She jammed her fingers into the crack between the two doors and strained until her arms trembled. The crack widened almost imperceptibly, but after a gasp of effort her fingers slipped free again. With a snarl of frustration, she pounded the heel of her hand against the door again and again.
Chekov jumped off the bed and laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Hey!" he said. "What's that going to accomplish?"
She threw off his hand. "How can you be so accepting?" she demanded. "How can you just sit there? What are they doing to us?" Her hands clutched at the collar of her robe, exposing one of the ugly, weeping sores. "What are these things growing on us?"
"I don't know!" Chekov said. "But that's not going to help! Look—do you want them to sedate you again?"
She turned away and paced across the length of the room, her shoulders tight. After a moment she turned back, visibly calmer—though still visibly upset. "You're right," she spat, as though the words pained her. "You're right."
She didn't say anything more, so Chekov ventured, "What's your name?"
"Kati," she said. All the anger seemed to drain out of her and her shoulders slumped. "Kati Tormis. I'm an astrophysicist. Or I was, anyway."
"An astrophyscist," Chekov repeated. It didn't sound like the usual sort of profession for a war criminal.
The door slid open, revealing the man who had sedated Kati earlier. He held two pairs of boots in one hand, and several garments draped over his other arm. Kati tensed and raised her fists, but Chekov lifted his hand, not quite touching her. Whatever this man had done earlier, he didn't seem like he was threatening them now.
"I hope you're feeling better," he said. "I know how frightening this must be for both of you." He lifted the boots slightly. "I brought some clothes, in case you'd care to change."
"Why are you holding us here?" Kati demanded.
"You are not prisoners. In fact, we consider you honored guests. The Caretaker has sent you to us. As long as you are not violent you are free to leave your quarters."
"What's wrong with us?" Chekov stretched out his hands, showing the ugly growths on their backs. "What are these things?"
"We really don't know," the man said sadly. His words hung in the air for a moment. "You must be hungry," he continued. "Would you care to join me in the courtyard for a meal?"
As though suddenly reminded, Chekov's stomach let out a loud rumble of protest.
Kati glanced at him, and the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Why the hell not?" she said. "Give me those boots."
They changed out of their white robes and into the soft earth-colored tunics and leggings. As he led them through a maze of white corridors, the man explained that his name was Ren, and his people called themselves the Ocampa. The corridors led them to an enormous, vaulted space, and the two humans stopped and stared in wonder.
It was a cavern, a cavern larger than anything Chekov had ever imagined. All of San Francisco could have fit inside—if it weren't for the city already inhabiting it. Rough stone walls blended seamlessly with pale geometric structures: fat circular columns, square buildings with multiple curved eaves like Japanese pagodas, and straight bridges across wide canals.
"We're underground!" he exclaimed.
"Our society is subterranean," Ren said. "We've lived her for more than five hundred generations."
Kati seemed fascinated by the alien architecture, and the aliens themselves, who watched them curiously from the promenade. "But before that—you lived on the surface?"
"Until the warming began."
"The warming?"
"When our surface turned into a desert and the Caretaker came to protect us," Ren explained. "Our ancient journals tell us that he opened a great chasm in the ground and led our ancestors to this place. Since then he has provided for all our needs."
As they spoke, more Ocampa gathered around, forming a ragged crowd that watched Chekov and Kati with wide eyes. Ren glanced at their audience and smiled gently. "Please forgive them," he said. "They know you've come from the Caretaker. None of us has ever seen him." He gave another sad pause, and then said, "This way, please."
They followed the promenade along the canal, passing Ocampa who turned to watch them as they walked by. Chekov began to feel like he was on display, and Kati's shoulders were tense again. A few people reached out and hesitantly brushed their hands against Chekov's shoulders, like petitioners seeking the blessing of a saint. He smiled nervously at them, unsure what to do. He was beginning to wonder whether the Caretaker was real, or merely a religious figure; the Ocampa certainly acted as though he was a god.
Ren brought them to a series of slots in one of the walls, which looked a lot like a public replicator. Sure enough, he reached into one of the slots and produced a bowl of dark-colored gruel, which he handed to Kati.
She swirled her spoon around the mixture and eyed it doubtfully. "Does the Caretaker provide your meals, too?"
"In fact he does," Ren said, offering another bowl to Chekov, who lifted a spoonful and watched it glop back into the bowl. "He designed and built this entire city for us after the warming. The food processors dispense nutritional supplements every 4.1 intervals." He caught their dubious expressions and chuckled. "It may not offer the exotic tastes some of our younger people crave these days, but it meets our needs."
Chekov cautiously tried a mouthful and decided it wasn't too bad. He gave Kati an encouraging smile, but she only arched a skeptical eyebrow.
Carrying their bowls, they followed Ren to some kind of lounge, where chairs faced a series of large viewscreens. A scattering of Ocampa sat, watching images of sunsets, clouds, and unfamiliar forests flicker across the screens. Their posture was relaxed, but not idle: whatever the images were, they were clearly not mere entertainment.
"This is how the Caretaker communicates with you?" Chekov guessed.
"The Caretaker never communicates directly. We try to interpret his wishes as best we can."
"I'm curious to know how you've interpreted the Caretaker's reason for sending us here."
"We believe he must have separated you from your own species for their protection."
"Their protection?" Kati echoed.
"From your illness," Ren said. "Perhaps he's trying to prevent a plague."
"We weren't sick until we met your Caretaker!" she cried.
"From time to time he asks us to care for people with this disease," Ren said, a little helplessly. "It's the least we can do."
"There have been other like us?" Kati asked, narrowly beating Chekov to the same question.
"Yes," Ren admitted.
"Where are they?"
"Your condition is serious. We don't know exactly how to treat it." Another of Ren's sad silences stretched between them. "I'm afraid the others did not recover."