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STAR TREK FROM THE DEPTHS BY VICTOR MILAN POCKET BOOKS Now York London Toronto Sydney bkyo Singapore The sale of this book without Its cover Is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that It was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book." This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon and Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Copyright C 1993 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of a Paramount Pictures. This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Fbbbr information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN 0-671-86911-6 First Pocket Books printing August 1993 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon and Schuster Inc. Printed in the U.s.a. For Joan-Marie Prologue Blinking iNT-O molten silver sunlight, Aileea dinAthos emerged from the ranch house to find her father sitting on the afterdeck, clad only in khaki shorts. A cup of black chai steamed in his hand. A white eyeshade shielded his face from the glare of tiny Eris, burning a hole in the blue-white sky to the east, not far above the ocean that was their world. She stood on tiptoe, stretched arms high above her head, hand locked on wrist, back arching. She wore just a white thong swimsuit bottom and a sidearm belt. Eris light fell on her bare brown skin like a rain of needles. The sky was clear but for a bloated gray worm of smoke sprawled across the southern horizon and a bank of slate-colored clouds to the northeast. That would probably not last past noon, but like any true Vare she was prepared to enjoy the moment to the fullest. She came up behind her father then, making no more noise than she customarily did, which was none, despite the light fall of volcanic ash that dusted the deck. Before she reached the edge of his peripheral vision, he said, "You're up late. A body comes by slovenly habits in the city." She laughed and sat down on the arm of his chair. A mild sea was washing over the white flotation cylinders that supported the deck. The float rocked gently. A soft breeze ruffled her shag-cut hair. "If that's the worst habit I've picked up in the city," she said, "we're all luckier than I thought we were." Aagard dinAthos saluted his daughter with his mug, which was white porcelain and chipped at the brim. Much as it exasperated her, he refused to throw it away. It had history, he claimed. "It's never too late to come home. Ranch life is hard, but-it's honest and clean." "My work's honest, too," she said. She stood up quickly and instantly regretted her comsharpness of tone. Her father just grinned at her through his short grizzled beard and nodded. She sighed. She knew her father both loved and respected her. And she had been a full adult for years, since her fourth birthday, self-owning and self-reliant. She was seven and a quarter now, but he had never let go of testing her. It was A major reason she could never come home to stay. When Mom was alive, it was different. Aagard and Aileea dinAthos were made of the same stuff. Sanabar comgentle, resilient, and utterly unlike her husband or her daughter-had been the safety rod that prevented them achieving critical mass. One of the sudden ,terrible storms that wracked the planet had washed her from their lives, leaving a void that could not be filled. There were many reasons they called the world Discord. Aileea wandered near the rail, shaded her eyes to gaze away to the smoke bank in the south. Nearer to hand a pair of Hinds floated above a raft, each on six red win , seeking the life-forms crawling in and on gs the matted seaweed. "New volcano?" she asked. "We never wandered out this way when I was a kid." "Just sticking her head above water," her father said, nodding. "That's why I'm keeping the float ever so slightly under power, so that we can steer clear of the plume. May even have to lay on more thrust, bear a hair north"-he brushed at the gray grit film that had accreted on the arm of his chair- "so we don't have to go around wearing respirators." She nodded. "Maybe FlIscoot down that way and have a look at our new arrival." "Best take a flyer. She's an active baby." As if to emphasize his words a rumble, almost subliminally low-pitched, rolled in from the south to vibrate in their bones and teeth. Before her the surface of the Ocean of Discord bowed upward and then broke with a quiet, insistent rushing, not twenty meters from the ranch house. Water cascaded from the mottled dark blue back of a prawn. The Waverider crest had been laser-burned a centimeter deep and a meter wide in the beast's carapace, which was thick as battleship plate and nearly as hard. Like most of Discord's native lifeforms, the giant crustaceans metabolized and made use of the, metals superabundant in the planet's crust. As always, Aileea was awed watching the beast's back, ten meters wide at its broadest, rolling like the top of a great wheel turning, to vanish again beneath the waters. The house rocked to the swell of its passing. The fifty-meter-long prawn was a sea grazer, utterly nonaggressive, relying on size and armor sufficient to deter even the rapacious predators of the world called Discord. A constant tone emitted by the household sonics, inaudible to the ears of Aileea and her father, kept the beast from approaching dangerously close. The breeze blew the rank salty smell of sea life to her, and something else, at once sweet and pungent. "That's Old Lucy, isn't it?" she asked. "The matriarch herself." "She's ready to be scraped." "True enough. But she's just done spawning. Didn't want to gripe her." Out on the water the wavelets danced white-bright like broken porcelain shaken on a table. A scooter skimmed the surface, snaking a line of froth across the shards. A ranch hand, riding herd on the pod of giant crustaceans or inspecting the pod-shaped robot 66 wranglers" that contained and guided the huge sea beasts. The figure raised an arm and waved. 6'Who is that?" Aileea asked, waving back. "I can't make out." "It's Gita, of course," her father said gruffly. "You can tell by the reckless way she careens around." He eyed his daughter critically. "Your childhood playmate, and you don't recognize the way she rides?" Aileea felt her mouth tighten. She was all too aware of the gap that now yawned between her and the woman who had been a virtual sister to her. Not that she didn't get along with Gita. It was just that they had ... grown apart, and she felt an aching hollowness within. "It's been a long time since I've seen her ride, Father." "You're losing touch with where you came from, girl." She glared at him. He regarded her with eyes sharp and black as obsidian. "Come home, Aileea," he said in a quiet voice. "You know the sea as well as any Vare-you're a very part of her. And you'll soon pick the ranching life back up, right enough." He showed her a sardonic grin. "And I don't think you'd need worry about growing bored. We see action aplenty." A grimace flickered across her face. like a cloud transiting the sun. "I've seen all the action I everwant to, Father. And then some." She paced the slow-rolling deck, hugging herself. "The Stilters come frequently?" "Very much so, these days." She turned. "But you're handling them?" It was a foolish question, she realized at once. Evidently. Or we wouldn't be here. "Well enough," her father said. "But it's starting to cut close- his A shrill beeping sounded. He reached down, picked up a palmreader, and frowned at the screen. Aileea felt a chill run down her spine. "The perimeter wranglers are picking up something on sonar." It was not a question. Her father nodded, murmuring quick commands into the handheld unit. Cable of lightweight hightensile-strength alloy played out of a housing atop the ranch house, allowing the radar eye slung beneath the captive polymerized aluminum balloon to ride higher, to see farther past the horizon. , "Speak of Leviathan," Aagard dinAthos muttered when he saw what it showed him. "Speak of the Devil in the Sea. "Get below," Aileea said sharply. "You can control the wrangle rs from the command center." "I can control them from here, too, daughter," he said, rising to his full height, which was impressive for a man of their Gens.

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