Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont’d)
“It’s just gonna be some weird rocks.”
It was the fourth time that Sunek had offered this opinion about the mysterious source of the radiation since they had started the climb, and Denella still wasn’t buying it. The Orion engineer sighed in exertion and set off up the next rocky incline of the hills near to where the Bounty had landed, as she and the ever-complaining Vulcan continued to ascend.
“It’s always weird rocks,” Sunek continued, wheezing slightly as he followed her up a natural stone pathway that seemed to wind its way up to the top of the hill.
He had barely stopped whining since they had finished the last of their repairs and set off in the direction of the strange readings that Sunek had pinpointed earlier, but Denella was happy to ignore the complaints and enjoy the workout, which was combining steep inclines with heavier gravity.
Even though Sunek was probably right. It was probably just some weird rocks.
“I ever tell you about my Great Grand Uncle Rovik?” Sunek panted, “Served in the Vulcan Science Ministry his whole life. All two incredibly boring centuries of it. Spent all that time on science vessels, chasing every kooky radiation surge or energy reading they picked up, seeking some fascinating new discovery or breakthrough. And it was always just a bunch of weird rocks.”
Denella paused to get her breath as they reached a more level section of the climb. Sunek stopped alongside her and surveyed the valley below them. “I spy, with my little eye,” he sighed, “A bunch of stuff that sucks.”
“I think it’s nice,” she countered, “Fresh air, a decent bit of exercise. We don’t do this enough. You need to work out more, you know.”
Sunek tutted and pointed across the hillside to a gentler path to the top a little way along. “Why didn’t we go up that way?” he whined, “That looks way easier than this!”
“Cos there’s a forest there,” Denella replied, pointing out the thick tree line that covered a section of the shallower incline, “I don’t do forests.”
Without feeling the need to clarify her comment any further, she turned and pressed on, seeing that they were now in sight of the summit. After a moment, Sunek scrambled up behind her, and switched the topic of conversation in a way she wasn’t expecting.
“Hey, while we’re still alone,” he sighed, “You know that whole dumb meditation thing we’re doing? I mean, you haven’t told anyone about that, right?”
She was surprised to hear this. Not so much him describing their calming exercises as ‘dumb’, but more the fact that he’d brought them up now.
She shook her head in amusement, assuming he was joking around. “Actually, I’ve rigged up some secret cameras in the cargo bay. Transmit every session to everyone’s cabin. And to any passing ship in range.”
“Funny,” Sunek griped back, “Hey, how about we stick to our lanes, hmm? I’ll do the jokes, and you do the whole ‘Aw, my poor shippy-wip got a boo-boo on her warpy-drive’ act.”
“Do I really sound like that?”
“It’s just…I’ve got a reputation to maintain onboard. Y’know, as second-in-command—”
She couldn’t help but let out an audibly amused snort, which riled Sunek.
“Ok, seriously, what is so hard to believe about that?” he persisted, as they clambered on.
“Nothing,” she said, off-handedly, “It’s just, Jirel told me how he sees our little pecking order a while back. And, after all, I’m the one that keeps the Bounty in one piece.”
“Really? You?” Sunek snorted, “Ugh, fine, whatever. Maybe you are second-in-command. But then it’s me, right? Not Klath.”
She glanced behind her and shot him a knowing glance, which made him bristle more.
“Oh, come on!” he scoffed, allowing himself to get more wound up as they climbed on, “So, what? I only get to boss Princess Starfleet around? She’s only been onboard five minutes!”
Denella paused just shy of the summit. “Actually,” she said with a slightly wicked smile, “Pretty sure Jirel promoted her ahead of you last week.”
Sunek bristled further, then noted how close they were to the summit and allowed a knowing smile of his own to cross his face. “Hang on,” he said, wagging a finger at her, “You’re just winding me up with all this, right? So I’d stop complaining and get to the top of the stupid hill faster?”
Denella paused for a second. While she hadn’t entirely made up Jirel’s thoughts on the Bounty’s pecking order, she had also been exaggerating it for precisely that reason. It was usually a lot easier to get Sunek to do hard work when he was suitably distracted. But she had also done it because after putting up with Sunek’s constant complaining for so long, she was eager for a little payback. And she decided she wasn’t quite finished yet.
“Ok,” she shrugged, entirely innocently, “Let’s say that’s what I was doing.”
With that, she began the final ascent, as Sunek scoffed and called out to her. “Nice. Really nice. You know, that’s a pretty crappy thing to do to someone you’re helping get over a bunch of residual anger issues!”
She paused and looked back, a little concerned. “I thought we’d made progress with the meditating? You said you were over it?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sunek nodded with an overly casual snort, “I’m totally over all that, y’know? It’s just…my point is that I don’t want the others to know—”
“Sunek,” she smiled, “Trust me. Your reputation, such that it is, is safe with me.”
He let that latest jibe go, and smiled back, as the two of them came perilously close to the rarest of galactic events: Sunek saying thank you.
In the end, he simply nodded in satisfaction, then gestured back up at the final stretch between them and the top of the hill. “Come on then, we doing this, or what?”
They set off again as he continued to ramble on.
“Hey, you reckon we’re the first people to ever climb this thing? Do we get a medal or an award or something?”
Denella went to reply, then stopped and stared.
They had reached the top of the hill, and now had an unfettered view of the valley on the other side, where the radiation pattern had been coming from. And there was no doubt to either of them that they had found the source.
“Huh,” Sunek managed, “Not just some weird rocks then.”
In the valley below them was the unmistakable form of a crashed starship.
* * * * *
“I can see you haven’t been fortunate enough to have heard of me.”
Martus Mazur, the artist formerly known as The Seer, was still smiling, seemingly revelling in the situation despite the lack of recognition on the faces in front of him. Except, as Jirel started to put everything in order, he realised he did recognise the name.
“Huh. Actually, I have heard of you,” he said, with a slight smirk of his own, “El-Aurian, right? And a great big galactic con artist.”
The man in the green robes feigned a look of shock at this comment. “Really? That’s what you’ve heard? I’m hurt. Really, I am.”
“You know him?” Klath asked his colleague in confusion.
“Sort of, although I’ve never actually met him,” Jirel clarified, “Remember I told you about that scam I got caught up in before I got the Bounty? Me and a bunch of stragglers fell for this plan to buy an old Vulcan supply ship. We were all gonna share the profits the thing made on a route to Ferenginar and back.”
“Sounds like a profitable venture,” the El-Aurian replied.
“Doesn’t it just,” Jirel continued with a glare, “Except, as soon as we’d all transferred the latinum, the guy who was supposed to be making the purchase mysteriously disappeared.”
He jabbed his finger in Mazur’s direction. Klath nodded in tacit understanding. He may not have known Mazur himself, but he knew the type.
“Hmm,” Mazur offered, “That doesn’t sound like me—”
“It was you,” Jirel replied firmly.
“Ugh. Fine. If you must know, that was all a simple misunderstanding. When I went to make the purchase, it turned out that the Romulans had attacked the shipyards, and—”
“Yeah, I’m sure they did,” Jirel scoffed, “Still, I always thought that was as far as you went for a con. Turning over little scams on colonies here and there. This is on another level. All this…”
He gestured to the elaborate robes, and then looked a little more confused.
“Actually, what the hell are you doing?”
Mazur shot the Trill a withering look as he smoothed down his robes. “Improvising,” he replied curtly, “Which I’ve been doing for the last two months!”
“Why?” Klath asked, which seemed like a perfectly valid question.
“Because the transport ship that was taking me to Ventriss IV suffered a warp core imbalance in this system and crash landed on this godforsaken backwards hell of a planet,” Mazur sighed, as if it should have been obvious, “I was the only survivor.”
“How fortunate,” Jirel replied, without mirth.
“Not really. The ship was a write-off. All I could do was use an emergency comms unit to get a message out to one of my contacts to pick me up. His pilot happens to be a Trill, a guy by the name of Marel Jan. You know him?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jirel deadpanned, “We all know each other.”
If Mazur felt sheepish for his comment, he hid it well, as Jirel continued to quiz him.
“So, what? You decided to get a little grift going while you were down here, almighty Seer?”
Mazur waved his hand dismissively, the sleeve of his robe flapping about as he did so. “Ugh,” he scoffed regarding his get-up, “I wish I could claim this was something so elaborate. Truth is, I needed food and shelter, and this was the first settlement I found. As for the…character I’ve put on, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t exactly fit in around here. So I had to come up with a backstory. I’m a traveller from the Southern continent.”
“Does this planet even have a Southern continent?”
“Who cares?” Mazur shrugged, gesturing back out in the direction of the Makalites, “They don’t know, do they?”
Jirel and Klath glanced at each other and shrugged. He had a point.
“So, yes, I presented myself as a traveller, cooked up a backstory, and it turns out these Makalites love a good prophecy. So here we are. I’m…The Seer.”
Jirel shook his head, still trying to piece everything together. “Ok, but, why give them this big story about taking them off to utopia? Why make me—I mean, whatever Trill you were expecting, some sort of saviour?”
Mazur rubbed the bridge of his nose, fending off a stress headache. He stepped over and peered out of the door of the hut, making doubly sure there were no Makalites in earshot, before turning back. “Because of this stupid disease they’ve all got!” he hissed, “Obviously their Seer didn’t see that one coming! And when you’re as backwards as this lot are, and some invisible threat starts killing your grandparents, the first thing you do is blame the newcomer. So I had to…”
“Improvise,” Klath grunted on his behalf.
“Glad you’re getting the picture. Not as stupid as you look.”
Klath felt a sudden desire to reach for the bat’leth holstered on his back and introduce the El-Aurian to the sharpest edge. But he held back for the moment.
“Um,” Jirel managed, “About this disease—”
“Oh, don’t worry. It only seems to affect the locals,” Mazur lied quickly, hoping that would stop any follow-up questions, “But I introduced the ‘spotted man’ to keep them off my back and hold out for their…saviour. Best lies are based on truth, and all that. Trust me, I have no intention of actually bringing these people with me.”
“With you?” Klath asked.
“Well, my contact seems to have sold me out on this one, but I’m assuming you have a ship?”
Jirel and Klath slowly nodded, eliciting a relieved smile from Mazur.
“In which case,” he said, “I’d very much appreciate it if you got me the hell out of here.”