Gemworld_ Book One Part 1

Gemworld.

Book One.

by John Vornholt.

Chapter One.

MAMMOTH PRISMS AND SPINDLY SPIRES stretched across the pale blue sky, catching the sun in a ripple of rainbow s.h.i.+mmers. Stairlike forms seemed to stretch forever, crossing and weaving in an endless dance of structure and light. From a distance, the crystalline fingers and branches looked fragile, like coral growing in a fish tank. But at close range, the giant prisms were as solid as marble columns, and as smooth and dazzling as diamonds.

Dwarfed by the towering crystals were five young humanoids; they soared among the spires like birds flying through a forest. Sails billowed from their arms and legs to catch the convection currents, but the fliers mostly depended upon graceful acrobatics to propel themselves. Tandra, the team leader of the five youths, glided to a thick green monolith, tagged up like a swimmer making a lap turn, then bounded off in an altered direction.

Two young Elaysians followed her lead, bouncing off the same crystal and racing after her. The other two members of the science team took different angles at the big monolith and soared off in parallel trajectories. One of the boys rolled into a midair somersault, just having fun. This close to the core of the planet, crystals grew in profusion, so there were plenty of smooth surfaces for pus.h.i.+ng off.

Tandra frowned, deepening the crease around her V-shaped forehead ridges. Once they reached the hollow core, she knew they would have to be more careful with their flight patterns. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the robotic hoverplatform was following them. At a discreet distance, the meter-long disc floated along, its small thrusters making minute course changes. Once they reached the core, Tandra knew they might need the platform, for a push-off or a roost.

Laughing and chatting, the five students soared from one spidery, crystalline structure to another, plunging deeper into the center of the unique planet. To the few visitors who came here, Gemworld looked more like the intricate skeleton of a planet, or a giant snowflake made of prisms. For the Elaysians, it was a crystalline aviary. For the other sentient races, Gemworld was what they made of it. All of the inhabitants knew it was a special place, even if very few of them had ever seen a conventional planet for comparison.

As Tandra flew through a stand of rainbow-hued prisms-old growth before the natural geometry had been improved by fractal models-she gaped at the exquisite beauty. She thought angrily about the outsiders who claimed that Gemworld wasn't a real planet. They pointed to its forcefields and lack of ma.s.s, thinking that such a place had to be artificial, despite its immense size. They simply didn't understand.

Although the crystals looked cold and foreboding, even with their uncanny beauty, they sheltered a surprising variety of life. What could an outsider know about that? Outsiders couldn't stay long enough to really appreciate Gemworld because the low gravity was harmful to most gravity-dependent species. Although humans' muscles were a dozen times more developed, they could never soar between the sparkling archways like Elaysians born and raised in this gossamer cage.

A clearing loomed on the far side of a thicket of crystals, and Tandra realized they were getting close to the core of Gemworld. At one time, it had been a molten, metallic ma.s.s like a conventional planetary core, but the Ancients had sacrificed it to fuel the crystal. Now the inhabitants were slowly rebuilding the core with new crystal growth, which was the reason for the students' outing today.

Despite the fact it was empty-or because of it-Tandra found the core of Gemworld an eerie place to travel. Since it was hollow and equidistant from the ma.s.sive crystal constructs surrounding it, the core was the most weightless part of the planet. Only trace gravity was measurable here.

As they flew farther into the ancient heart of the planet and the old-growth crystal, the light became more refracted and eerie, as if the ancient ocean were still there. Tandra felt the weight of ages, how many ages n.o.body knew, except perhaps the Lipuls. And even they had gaps in their history. The sparkling hues of the upper levels had given way to rust, olive, and sage colors, and the weathered facets were striated from elements that hadn't a.s.saulted them for millions of years.

Tandra could well imagine the great oceans that pummeled these prisms eons ago, when even the Lipuls and the Gendlii were single-celled animals. Gemworld had been young then. Now it was old. But it was still a planet, thought Tandra, despite its low gravity.

Glancing around, she noted that her friends gave little regard to their solemn surroundings as they soared and tumbled through a swooping archway. They were just a flock of young people on a field trip, thought Tandra, and she shouldn't judge them too harshly. Hovering so close to the birthplace of the planet always gave her a sense of history-and a chill-but today it seemed more eerie than usual.

"We'll hold up at the purple prism!" Tandra shouted to her comrades.

"Oh, we can make it across!" scoffed one of the boys, soaring past her.

"We'll hold up!" she shouted back. "I'm the team leader."

Tandra knew she couldn't do much if the others disobeyed, but none of them wanted to get stuck out here in the wilderness. They wanted to measure the new stand, see if the fractal modeling program was working as expected, and get out of here. It was too lovely a day to be plodding through kilometer after kilometer of empty air. Although the outing had been fun so far, it had also been long, and the young Elaysians were impatient to return to their research base about four hundred prisms above them.

One by one, the students alighted softly on the ancient purple spire at the edge of the clearing. Tandra gazed into the hollow marrow of the crystal and could see its pulsing gel center. It was a sight she always found rea.s.suring, because it meant that Lipuls probably lived within the marrow. Before the students lay a wide expanse of nothingness, broken up by little islands of discarded equipment, dust, and debris, all of it floating uselessly. In the distance, the edge of the crystal growth s.h.i.+mmered like a mirage.

"How much farther?" asked Lucio, the cutest of the boys, with his slight frame and rare dark hair.

"I'll find out." From her backpack, Tandra took a small handheld device and turned it on. She waited a few seconds until the positioning device communicated with the sh.e.l.l that circled the planet and fixed their current position. As the students hovered around her, Tandra punched in the coordinates of their destination.

"About two hundred prisms." Tandra took a bit of ground crystal from her pocket and tossed it into the air to check the air currents. Now she knew what kind of arc to take to stay on course. "We can cover it in an hour if we get good jumps. Everyone, take a drink, because there won't be time to stop."

Taking her advice, the young Elaysians pulled out sip tubes and sipped from water bladders built into their backpacks. One by one, they used the hovercraft to crouch on the rough-hewn monolith then bound off into the wideopen wilderness. Strung out like a line of migrant birds, the Elaysians soared gracefully across the hollow core of Gemworld.

Tandra realized she would have to rely heavily on the positioning device, so she took it out of her backpack and slipped the strap around her neck, letting it float behind her. A quick glance a.s.sured her that the rest of the team and the hoverplatform were following dutifully behind, then she double-checked to make sure they were on course. Finally satisfied that they would reach their destination in due time, the team leader spread her sails to catch the prevailing air currents.

It didn't take long for her to realize that something was wrong. Clumps of old mining equipment, which she used for landmarks, never materialized. Tandra checked the device hanging from her neck and discovered that they were considerably off course. That was odd. Tandra had always been the best flier in her cla.s.s, as demonstrated by her promotion to team leader. Flying on course came naturally to her, but not today. Not down here in the bowels of the planet.

The dimness was more disturbing than usual, as if something were cutting off what little suns.h.i.+ne filtered down to the core. It was almost as dark as twilight, which was the closest they ever came to having a night on Gemworld. The air smelled dry, chalky, hotter than usual. Tandra felt a nervous p.r.i.c.kling on her white skin, and her triangular forehead ridges deepened.

"Lucio!" she called. "We're going to stop, and I want you to check the tricorder."

"Why stop?" he responded. "We're making great time!"

"We're off course," she answered. "I want to know why."

A laugh came from Honroj, who was flying closely behind Lucio. "Could it be that our team leader is fallible?"

"Could be" she answered. "I hope it's that simple."

Lenora, who looked enough like Tandra to be her sister, caught a gust in her sails and swooped over Tandra's head. "If we stop," she complained, "we'll never get up to this pace again."

Several of the others shouted in agreement, but Tandra had her mind made up. And she wasn't in a mood to argue.

"Aid me," she ordered the hoverplatform. Thrusters kicked on, and the small disc-shaped drone cruised to her side, letting her grab ahold of its low handles. She worked the control panel and stopped the platform, also stopping herself. The other students cruised ahead for some distance, but they soon unfurled backsails and began to float. Tandra noted how long it took for them to slow down, and she also saw something in the distance, something that shouldn't have been there.

She fumbled in her backpack for a pair of lenses, which she pulled over her eyes. At once, the empty distances evaporated, and she could see the apparition ahead of them. It appeared to be a cl.u.s.ter of crystals, where none should be, growing in unruly profusion. Even more disturbing was the color of the new growth: dark and cancerous.

It has to be a mistake, thought Tandra, a trick of the dim light. Things looked funny down here, where distance couldn't be judged by the ubiquitous crystals. Gripping the hoverplatform, the young Elaysian put the conveyance into forward and cruised toward her friends. "Link up!" she shouted. "We're checking something out!"

"What?" came one response.

"Says who?" asked another.

She ignored the questions and kept cruising toward her friends, letting the platform do all the work. In a maneuver which they had performed since infancy, the Elaysians drifted together and linked hands. They were still grumbling about the unplanned stop when Tandra snagged Lenora's hand and towed the others behind her like a chain of paper dolls.

When she was certain the link was solid, Tandra increased speed until they were clipping along briskly. She had no spare hand to hold lenses to her eyes, but she could see the cl.u.s.ter of dingy crystals looming ahead of them. It must be huge. The others could see it, too, and they had stopped grousing. In fact, a worried hush had fallen over the team because none of them had ever seen a stand of crystals that looked anything like this one.

"What is it?" breathed Lenora.

"I don't know," admitted Tandra. Normally they would have released hands by now to fly individually, but there was an urgency to their mission. In the face of this unknown threat, it felt safer to hold onto each other.

As they drew closer, Tandra could see the nourishment strands hanging like spiderwebs around the ragged cl.u.s.ter. The strands stretched into the vastness, connected to distant relays. But who would feed this monstrosity?

"Is somebody growing that?" asked Lucio, voicing the thought on everyone's mind. "Is it an experiment?"

"It's not in the logs," answered Tandra. "Nor on any chart I've ever seen."

"Who would claim it?" asked Honroj. No one could answer his question, and the students fell back into an uneasy silence as they soared in unison through the deepening gloom.

With every pa.s.sing moment, the ma.s.s of stunted, deformed crystals loomed larger and more foreboding-like an icy meteorite with spikes. Tandra almost ordered the group to turn around and flee from the anomaly; but they were training to be scientists, and scientists didn't run from the unknown. They would find a logical explanation for this aberration, she told herself. It had to be a failed experiment or a terrible accident. The young Elaysian didn't want to think about what it really looked like-a part of Gemworld's heart that was rotting from within.

Tandra cut the power on the hoverplatform, and the students glided slowly into the shadows of the jagged cl.u.s.ter. Seen up close, the crystals were even more alarming than seen from a distance; they were twisted, broken, and streaked with imperfections. There were no fractal modeling programs at work here, no careful stimulation and feeding of the crystal-there were only rampant, obscene growth. Tandra shuddered, thinking that no power on Gemworld was capable of mutating the crystal to such a degree.

As soon as they stopped drifting, Lucio pulled a tricorder from his pack and began to take readings. A look of horror flashed across his handsome face.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Thoron radiation," he answered. "Enough to cause some damage. We've got to get out of here!"

"Not until we've taken a sample of it," said Tandra with determination. From her pack, she removed a small hammer and chisel. Even without being told about the radiation, she could sense danger permeating the dark growth.

Pus.h.i.+ng off from the platform, Tandra drifted toward one of the largest, most deformed prisms. It looked like a blackened tree, burned in some monstrous fire. Tandra felt the odd sensation of gravity, and she wondered if these mutant crystals were somehow more dense than the typical variety. Her friends hung back. They obviously wanted to help, but were paralyzed with fear and indecision, and she couldn't really blame them. They needed a cutting for the professors, for the laboratory, Tandra doggedly told herself.

Without giving it a thought, she uncurled her legs to land on a dark facet of the prism. The moment her toes touched, she realized what a terrible mistake that had been-the murky crystal shattered at contact, and Tandra was engulfed in jagged shards and sooty powder. It burned her skin like an acid bath, and she coughed uncontrollably as she plunged into the crumbling mora.s.s. She couldn't stop her momentum! The deformed monolith broke in two, and the upper half closed on top of the young Elaysian like a clamsh.e.l.l.

"Tandra!" shouted Lucio. He and the others started to fly to her aid, but a black cloud spewed outward, forcing all of them back. They closed their eyes and s.h.i.+elded their faces, but even the diluted debris was noxious.

For several seconds, Lucio fell victim to a wracking cough. When he recovered, he realized that he had dropped his tricorder. Braving the venomous debris, be opened his eyes and spotted the device floating only an arm's length away. He quickly snagged the tricorder and checked to see if it was still working.

Lucio heard the others shouting at one another as they crowded around the hoverplatform, but he tuned them out. There was only one thing he wanted to see-the lifesign display on the tricorder. He aimed the device toward the dark cl.u.s.ter and adjusted its field. Trying to ignore the disturbing data he was picking up, he concentrated on the lifesign scan. Tandra has to be alive. She just has to be!

When the first pa.s.s was negative, he tried again. And again.

"Lucio!" shouted Honroj, waving to him from the platform. "Link up with us! We've got to rescue Tandra!"

"No, we don't," answered the young Elaysian grimly. "She's dead."

"Shouldn't we look ... for her body?"

"No. The thoron radiation is at dangerous levels. If we don't get out of here now, they'll be looking for all of our bodies."

Clenching his jaw to fight back the tears, Honroj piloted the disc to Lucio's side and grabbed his hand. One by one, he picked up the other students until he had collected a dispirited chain, linked by hands. With worried glances and stifled sobs, the young Elaysians pulled away from the dull, spiny ma.s.s of malformed crystals growing at the heart of their world.

Chapter Two.

A CHIME SOUNDED INSIDE Captain Picard's ready room, and the distinguished commander of the Enterprise looked up from his desk. "Come."

The door slid open, and Commander William Riker stepped into the room. With his broad shoulders and commanding presence, Will Riker seemed to fill up the small office. He approached the captain and held out a padd. "Here's the new personnel. We've picked up twenty new crewmembers in the last forty-eight hours."

"Good," said Picard, taking the proffered device. It was a relief to be at peace after the Dominion War, when the harried crew of the Enterprise had been shorthanded and burned-out ... on a good day. Now they were gaining crew, and even the most routine science mission seemed like a vacation.

The captain took a moment to politely glance at the data on the padd. They were nearly up to a full complement again, although they still hadn't a.s.sembled a community of families and civilians as they'd had aboard the EnterpriseD. Starfleet was depleted and in a state of shock after almost six years of war, starting with the Maquis and going through the Borg, Carda.s.sians, and the Dominion. The altruism and idealism were still there, but tempered by hard-earned cynicism. These days, fewer families volunteered for active duty.

"Is there something wrong, Captain?" asked Riker, attuned as usual to his commander's moods.

Picard mustered a smile. "No, Number One. It's just that ... I never thought I'd say this, but I miss them sometimes."

"Who?"

"The children. The families we used to have in the old days." He pointed to the padd. "This seems to be the usual mixture of career officers and new graduates."

Riker shrugged good-naturedly. "We're lucky to get them."

"I know," answered the captain. His voice took on a businesslike tone. "Any potential problems in this group?"

"Most of the ensigns are inexperienced, but I'll whip them into shape," bragged Riker with his usual bravado. Then the first officer frowned and pointed at the padd. "There is one officer with special needs: Lieutenant Melora Pazlar. She's Elaysian."

"Elaysian?" asked the captain in surprise. "That's rather unusual, isn't it?"

"Well, she's the only Elaysian in Starfleet," answered Riker, "but she comes highly recommended. She's on temporary a.s.signment, for the low-gravity study on Primus IV."

"Mission specialist, shuttlecraft pilot, and stellar cartographer," said Picard, reading her dossier. "Decorated for valor after saving her s.h.i.+p and a hundred and ninety-two lives during the Dominion War."

Riker smiled. "She's a handy one to have around when the artificial gravity goes out. Then she's in her element."

"But in normal gravity?"

"Normal gravity is another story," said the first officer. "Her body just isn't geared for it. She has a special anti-gravity suit which works fairly well with the Enterprise's gravity systems. At least she can get around. When she was on Deep s.p.a.ce Nine, she was confined to a wheelchair and special harnesses because they couldn't adapt the Carda.s.sian design of the station to her needs. Even here, she'll need a cane and her suit to walk."

"Surprising that she's put up with this for so many years," said Picard, scanning through Melora Pazlar's ill.u.s.trious record. "Couldn't Starfleet do anything to make her life easier?"

"Well, she was a candidate for an experimental treatment called neuromuscular adaptation. Dr. Bas.h.i.+r on Deep s.p.a.ce Nine was all set to do the procedure, but she backed out at the last minute. I guess it was irreversible, and she didn't want to take such a big step."

"But she's remained in Starfleet for almost a decade," said Picard with admiration, "despite being at an extreme disadvantage. Do what you can to make her feel at home, Number One."

"I will, sir. If she were here for an extended period, we could reconfigure our systems to turn off the gravity in her quarters. But she's going to be on Primus IV in a few days. For her, that will probably be like a vacation."

"I'm sure you're right," said the captain with a smile. The two old comrades knew instinctively when their business was over, and Will Riker started for the door. He paused to look back.

"Next time, Captain, I'll see if I can requisition some children for you."

Picard smiled. "Not too young. Toddlers are untidy, and I like my s.h.i.+p neat."

Riker chuckled and strode out of the ready room. After the door slid shut behind him, Captain Picard tapped his chin thoughtfully. Melora Pazlar was one crewmember he really wanted to meet, and he knew she wasn't going to be under his command for very long. The Enterprise was doing little on the Primus mission except to offer transportation and logistical support.

"Computer," he said, "give me the location and status of Lieutenant Melora Pazlar."

After taking a moment to consider the question, an efficient female voice answered, "Lieutenant Melora Pazlar is in her quarters, cabin one-four-dash-six-three-one. Ambient readings would indicate that she is asleep."

"Asleep" echoed Picard. "I'll contact her later. No message."