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  The scream started again, only this time it became a wail that seemed to go on forever.

  “I’m not so worried about it escaping,” Archer said. “I just don’t want anyone hurt, including the alien. Understood? Knock it out only.”

  “I’ve already given that order,” Reed said. “All of our weapons are set on stun.”

  At that moment the scream cut off suddenly, leaving the corridor in total silence. Archer had never heard anything as bad as that silence. It was different from the silence he’d encountered on the planet.

  That silence was an absence of sound.

  This one seemed more potent than that. It seemed to hang in the air, as if it had form and substance. Archer didn’t want to allow himself to think about what that silence meant to the men inside that room.

  At that moment, a pair of hairy black legs eased into the corridor. Reed tensed beside Archer. Archer pulled out his own pistol.

  The carapace came next, the creature’s face almost completely hidden in blackness. If Archer hadn’t known where the eyes were, he wouldn’t have seen them, glinting darkly in the corridor’s yellow light.

  Archer knew that the creature’s gaze didn’t dare land on them. Reed must have come to the same conclusion, because he and Archer fired at the same time.

  From the other side of the corridor, more shots hit the creature.

  It slumped to the floor and its eyes closed.

  Again the silence seemed to weigh on Archer, pushing him downward. The smell had grown so strong that it coated Archer, became part of him. He wondered if it would ever wash off.

  Archer eased toward the alien, with Reed on his left, both of them keeping their weapons trained on it.

  Then, inside the sickbay, a man again started to scream.

  Phlox pushed past them. “Excuse me, I have a patient calling me.”

  He stepped over the still body of the alien as if it didn’t bother him at all.

  Archer glanced at Reed, who only shrugged. They crouched beside the creature. Its legs had slid outward, leaving the same slime that Archer had noticed before. He avoided the slime, stepped between the legs, and peered at the creature itself.

  It seemed vulnerable, although he had no idea why he had that sense.

  “I’m going to need help in here,” Dr. Phlox shouted.

  Reed headed into sickbay. Archer stood, reluctant to leave the creature. He motioned to the guards at the other end of the corridor.

  “If it moves,” he said to them, “stun it again.”

  They nodded. They looked as nervous as Reed had. Those screams were enough to unsettle anyone.

  Archer stepped inside the sickbay and stopped. The normally clean, well-lit place looked as though a tornado had gone through it. One of the biobeds was tilted—only the fact that it was bolted into the floor had kept it from falling entirely—and a screen above was cracked. The tilted bed was covered with slime, as was the floor leading out of the sickbay.

  But that wasn’t what surprised Archer. He had expected some destruction. He had also expected to see bloody and wounded men.

  What he actually saw was worse. One guard, Crewman Pointer, lay on the floor, away from the slime, curled in a fetal position. His hands covered his head as he rocked back and forth. His lips were moving, but no words were coming out.

  The other guard, Crewman Daniels, stood, frozen in the middle of the room, his gun still in his hand. He was staring at the ceiling.

  Daniels was the one who was screaming. The screams came in bursts, as if he were continually startled by something.

  “You want to make sure he doesn’t shoot me?” Dr. Phlox shouted at Archer over the screams.

  Daniels didn’t seem to hear him. Just breath after breath, he kept screaming and staring at something Archer couldn’t see.

  Archer and Reed pointed their plasma pistols at Daniels. Archer double-checked to make sure his was set on stun. He was amazed at the sight before him. He kept thinking about all those psychological tests, about how Reed’s security team had rated the highest in Starfleet on courage and other scores, and how quickly they were reduced to this.

  What were they facing?

  Phlox moved around Daniels, being stealthy, although Archer doubted that was needed. Daniels seemed oblivious of everything except whatever he was seeing on the ceiling. Archer had looked up and seen nothing but the familiar white lights that usually made this room so bright and cheerful.

  With one quick movement, Phlox gave Daniels a shot in the arm. Daniels didn’t move. The shot didn’t even interrupt his screams.

  Then, suddenly, he stopped screaming. His eyes rolled into his head and he slumped to the floor. Phlox caught him just before Daniels’ head hit the hard deck.

  Then Phlox moved over and gave Crewman Pointer a shot, knocking him out as well.

  Archer let out a breath. His ears rang. He hadn’t realized how prevalent the screaming had been, like the stench that still filled this area. He wasn’t sure if the smell wasn’t as strong in here; it had coated his nose so badly everything stank of rotted fish.

  He glanced at the alien body in the doorway, then at the two men on the floor. One alien and three of his men down, and he had no idea why.

  He wasn’t even sure that what he had just witnessed had been a fight. It felt more like he was being a guard in a mental ward, controlling unruly patients. And he didn’t like that feeling at all.

  Reed helped Phlox lift Daniels to one of the biobeds. Next to him, Edwards slept on, completely oblivious of everything that had happened around him.

  Archer went to Pointer. The man’s body was rigid, even though he was unconscious. His fingers twitched convulsively at his hair.

  Reed came to his side, and together they carried Pointer to a nearby biobed. Phlox fluttered between both of the new patients, more upset than Archer had ever seen him.

  Archer glanced at the readings above Edwards’ head. They looked no different than they had before. He couldn’t figure them out; he wasn’t even sure what normal looked like on this equipment.

  “Doctor, you said you got some answers for me when we woke up Edwards,” Archer said.

  “I said I got some information, not answers.” Phlox was trying to ease Pointer’s hands away from his head. He wasn’t having much luck.

  “You’re going to have to convert that information into answers,” Archer said. “We’re out of time.”

  “I know.” Phlox didn’t look at him.

  “I want all your efforts spent on figuring out what happened here,” Archer said. “I want a solution, and I want it fast.”

  Phlox nodded.

  Archer turned to Reed. “Make sure the alien stays out cold and in confinement until we know what happened here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Reed said.

  “At the first sign of trouble with that alien, I want our people to fall back, just like we did. Whatever happened to these men happened quickly and because they were within a certain proximity. You and Dr. Phlox managed to avoid the same fate, just as Ensigns Cutler and Mayweather did. I have to believe, until someone proves otherwise, that distance had something to do with it.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, we don’t know what caused this.”

  Archer gave him a cold smile. “And that’s the real problem, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t wait for a response. He stepped past the alien and headed down the corridor for the bridge. There were answers. And he had a hunch the Fazi might just have them.

  TWENTY

  THE SMELL FOLLOWED ARCHER TO THE BRIDGE. He wondered if it was on him or just clogging his nostrils, the way some heavy scents did. Well, he wasn’t going to worry about it for now. His bridge crew would have to deal with the stench if, indeed, it was trailing him.

  Everyone was at their posts. Mayweather sat at the pilot’s station. Mayweather had gone off shift not long before, but alert status had brought him back to his position on the bridge.

  The whoop of the alert alarm sounded
louder here, perhaps because it wasn’t competing with Daniels’ screams.

  Archer headed for his command chair. “Stand down from alert status. Inform everyone to return to normal schedules until notified.”

  Hoshi repeated the order through the intercom system to the ship and then turned back to her screen, clearly intent on something she was studying. She hadn’t taken any more time from the bridge than a few short naps and meals since this all started. She had rings under her eyes and her hair was a mess, but Archer said nothing to her. He needed her to figure out what was happening, and why his mention of the race on the southern continent had made them cut off communication. One important way was through the Fazi language.

  “Those of you who were off duty,” Archer said to his bridge crew, “can return to your cabins. Make sure the second team gets up here. I want you all awake and sharp when you report for duty at 0600.”

  Several members of the bridge crew nodded. Hoshi made the announcement about regular shifts again, and behind Archer, the lift door opened as the evening crew reported back for duty.

  He was still tense and angry. Nothing should have happened to his men standing guard in sickbay. It had been pure luck that whatever had attacked them had avoided Dr. Phlox. Next time, the ship might not be so lucky—and without Phlox, they would be in real trouble.

  The lift door opened again, and Trip got off. He went to one of the workstations, pushing buttons and checking a screen. Supposedly he was off duty as well, but the alert had obviously put him back in work mode. At least he wasn’t in engineering, worrying about the warp drive.

  After a few minutes, Archer would tell Trip to relax. Until then, he could stay on the bridge and finish whatever he was working on.

  Archer stood, too restless to stay in place. He walked toward T’Pol’s science station. She had also spent a lot of extra time on the bridge lately, yet she looked her normal controlled self. Her nostrils flared as he came close. He suppressed a smile. He had forgotten about the Vulcan female’s sensitivity to smell.

  Apparently the stench that had followed him to the bridge didn’t just coat his nostrils. He decided to ignore it, glad for once that protocol forbade anyone to mention the fact that he smelled like fish guts.

  Like it or not, T’Pol had more experience with other races than he did. She might have encountered something like this before. With that in mind, he outlined what had happened in sickbay.

  “Do you have any idea what happened in there?”

  “The incident in sickbay sounds similar to the incident with Crewman Edwards on the planet,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Archer said. “I got that much.”

  She didn’t seem offended by his tone. Instead, she tapped a few keys and the images of Edwards and the aliens came up. “I do not believe this was an attack.”

  Archer stared at the screen. Edwards was holding his head and screaming, his eyes filled with terror. Fortunately the sound was off, but his anguish was plain. The aliens were approaching him, one in front and the others close behind.

  “It looks like an attack to me,” Archer said.

  “Me, too,” Trip said from behind him, and Archer jumped. He hadn’t noticed Trip, and that wasn’t like him.

  Trip saw the reaction and grinned at him. “What, Cap? Didn’t you think anyone would come close when you’re wearing that lovely new cologne?”

  So it did smell as bad as he feared. “No,” Archer said. “Just a little too focused, I guess.”

  “The alien scent is pungent,” T’Pol said, “although so far as I can tell it has no other dangerous properties.”

  “I didn’t even touch it,” Archer said. “I just stood near it.”

  “Apparently,” T’Pol said, “that was enough.”

  “Or too much, depending on your point of view,” Trip said. He pointed at the screen, his finger brushing the small image of the closest alien. “I still don’t see how you can say this wasn’t an attack. They approached him, he’s in pain, and we have an emergency beam-out. Seems like an attack to me.”

  “One always makes assumptions based on one’s own culture,” T’Pol said, her nostrils still flaring.

  Archer noted the intended insult and decided to ignore it. “Since your culture’s different,” he said, “what assumption are you making?”

  She looked at him sideways, tilting her head up so that she could see him. She was such a formidable presence, he often forgot how small she really was.

  “Vulcans do not make assumptions,” she said.

  Trip snorted. “Vulcans make assumptions all the time. They assume they know more than anyone else, they assume they’re superior—”

  Archer held up his hand for silence. “This isn’t the time or place.”

  “Vulcans,” T’Pol continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted, “make informed opinions based on logic and observation.”

  “Logic and observation,” Trip repeated as if he didn’t believe it.

  “What is your informed opinion?” Archer asked, struggling to keep the sarcasm from his own voice.

  T’Pol leaned toward the screen. Archer got the sense that she was also leaning away from the smell.

  She pointed at the lead alien. “You will note that it is not carrying anything, and it is not moving as fast as the other aliens. The others appear to be trying to catch up.”

  “So?” Trip asked before Archer had the chance to do the same.

  “So,” T’Pol said, her voice controlled and yet somehow still showing contempt in the single word, “I would consider the possibility that they were simply coming to greet a stranger.”

  Archer stared at the screen. Greeting a stranger calmly was what a Vulcan would do. But he couldn’t ignore Edwards.

  “I’d agree with you,” Archer said, “if Edwards weren’t screaming.”

  T’Pol crossed her arms and tilted her head up toward him. Her nostrils still flared and her greenish skin tone seemed more pronounced than usual.

  “Many things can disturb a person,” she said. “While they are unpleasant, they are not always an attack.”

  “Like what?” Trip asked.

  “Smells,” T’Pol said with a delicacy that Archer had to admire. “They assault the senses, sometimes drive sensitive people to illness, but the smell is not always intentional.”

  “On Earth, we have animals that spray their scents, sometimes to mark territory, sometimes to keep predators away,” Archer said.

  “Yet you are covered with an odor that was not sprayed upon you as a deliberate territorial marking or as a defense,” T’Pol said.

  “And it offends you,” Archer said with a hint of a smile.

  “I am sure I am not alone,” she said calmly.

  “She’s got you there, Captain,” Trip said.

  “Some species react so strongly to smells that they pass out when the smell is particularly strong,” T’Pol said. “Others suffer through watery eyes and swelled mucous membranes. Still others get physically ill almost immediately. All of these reactions might look to an outsider like a reaction to an attack—and technically, they are. They are an attack on the senses, but the attack is not a deliberate one.”

  Archer frowned and looked at the screen again. “It has bothered me that they never touched him.”

  “Yeah,” Trip said, “and there are no signs of weapons—at least not any we recognize.”

  T’Pol inclined her head forward as an acknowledgment of what they were saying. “We see what we expect to see. If we assume this is an attack, we look for invisible weapons, other methods of hurt. If we assume this is a welcoming party, then we have another dilemma.”

  “I can tell you right now, no human reacts to a strong smell that way,” Archer said.

  “Clearly,” T’Pol said dryly. “But I do not think smell is the problem here, although I do believe that Crewman Edwards suffered an assault on his senses.”

  “What kind of assault?” Archer asked.

  “An unintentional one, j
ust as your cologne, as Engineer Tucker calls it, is assaulting mine.”

  “They’re doing something to him that’s as natural to them as breathing?” Archer asked, trying to follow this.

  “In a word,” T’Pol said.

  “What would that something be?” Trip asked.

  “Telepathy,” T’Pol said.

  “These spider-folks are telepathic?” Trip asked.

  “What informs this opinion of yours?” Archer asked.

  “Logic,” T’Pol said.

  “That’s as good an answer as if I said my idea of an attack was based on a hunch,” Trip said.

  But Archer wasn’t as convinced. “I want to hear this,” he said to Trip. Then he nodded at T’Pol. “Explain this logic to me.”

  “Telepathy would function just as well on land as under water,” she said. “It would be a logical development for creatures who need to exist in both environments.”

  Hoshi stood and moved to join the discussion. She looked intrigued for the first time in days. “I understand there are a few races that employ limited telepathic communications.”

  T’Pol nodded. “I have heard of such telepathic races, but never had the pleasure of encountering one.”

  “Pleasure?” Trip asked. “I don’t think Edwards considers what he is going through a pleasure.”

  Archer agreed. Edwards had screamed like he was in hell.

  T’Pol looked at the chief engineer. “I believe the only luck we’ve had here is that a human crewman was not killed by a telepathic encounter.”

  Trip started to say something, but Archer stopped him with a wave of the hand again.

  “What makes you say that?” Archer asked T’Pol.

  “I do not believe the human mind can withstand a telepathic encounter. Humans lack the ability to control their most simple thoughts.”

  “Even if I were to accept that statement as true, which I do not,” Archer said, “what does controlling thoughts have to do with telepathy?”

  “A weaker mind cannot block a telepathic encounter if the mind cannot block its own random thoughts,” T’Pol said. “The level of control needed to withstand an invasive thought is considerable, especially if that invasive thought comes from the outside.”