Star Trek - TNG - To Storm Heaven

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Prologue

"DEATH!" OLD SE'AR MOANED, writhing in pain on her

pallet. "Ay me, death is coming!"

"Hush, you're ill. Lie quietly," the maiden soothed,

kneeling on the hard floor of beaten earth. "You must

save your strength if you want to get well, Mother

Se'ar, you know that."

"Well..." The old woman repeated the word as if

it were one of the local oberyin's magical healing

chants. She shook her head. "Do not lead me astray

with false hopes, child. I am old. I know what I know;

and I have always known when death would come." A

hollow chuckle escaped her fever-cracked lips.

Yes, she thought wearily. Death has been to me the

best of friends. The best of husbands as well. Has not:

death himself fed me, clothed me, provided for me all

these years? I know when it will come, when the soul

will leave the shell and find the glories of distant

Evramur. Always before I have been right in my

predictions, but always before it was another's death I

saw approaching. Aloud she said, "Now it is my turn

at last."

"Don't speak of that," the maiden insisted. "Your

time has not yet come."

"And how would you know?" A sudden burst of

indignation flared up from the old woman's fading

spirit. She made a great effort, heaving herself up on

one elbow, and stabbed an accusing finger at the girl

beside her. "Don't give yourself airs, just because I've

taken you in. For your mother's sake I've let you share

my roof, my bread, the fear-offerings of our friends

and neighbors, but you don't share my gift! How dare

you presume--" A sudden fit of coughing racked her

bony body and she sank back down onto the sweat-

stained sheet. The reeking straw beneath the coarse

cloth crunched and crackled.

The maiden got up swiftly, gracefully, and fetched a

clay bowl full of fresh milk, the cream beaten back

into it to fortify the sick woman. She set it to Se'ar's

lips and helped her drink. Only when the old woman

had had enough and waved her off did she say, "I

didn't mean it that way, Mother Se'ar. I know I have

no gift like yours." She lowered her head as if in

submission to the will of the gods, but beneath the

.fringe of blue-green hair, her eyes blazed with resent-

ment.

The old woman seemed not to have heard the girl's

words. Outside the hut the sun was setting, staining

the sky pink and purple. Her life ebbed with the day's

dwindling light, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

I was never wrong, never. When I said that such a

One wouM die, he was as good as dead. In time, the

people knew this. Was I wrong to turn my gift to trade?

Ay, what choice did I have? I was widowed young, no

sons to labor for me, my daughters all wed to shepherds

even stupider than the usual run of such shell-skulls.

Well, I suppose it was the best they couM do, poor girls,

with no dowry worth the name.

"A shepherd's wife," she mumbled. "Nothing lower

could befall any woman." Her eyes rolled aimlessly

from side to side as her mind wandered.

The maiden at her side wrung out a cloth that had

been soaking in a bowl of water nearby and laid it

across the old woman's brow. It soon turned warm

and she gave it another cooling dip. "Be at peace,

Mother Se'ar," she soothed. "Let nothing trouble you.

You did what you had to do to live, as we all do. Don't

worry about it now."

Without warning the old woman siezed the maid-

en's hands in an iron grip, pulling herself upright so

that their eyes met. "You don't understand!" she

wailed. "I took what was holy and sold it as if it were

milk or fleece or grain! Because I could foretell death,

my neighbors thought that I could also forestall it.

They came to me with food and drink and cloth,

begging me to spare the lives of their loved ones."

She paused, panting for breath as painful memories

assailed her. Fools. Sorry fools. Those who were bound

to die, died anyway, despite my silence. When that

happened, I tom them it was because the gods willed it,

and they had caused me to utter the doomed one~

name in dreams. How couM anyone prove otherwise?

Who wouM stand against the way of the blessed

Balance? They did not understand, and I let them live

on in ignorance because it suited me, and because it let

me lead a life of comfort, plenty, respect.

"Nothing can justify what I have done," she

wheezed, shaking her head. "Nothing!"

"You are not responsible for what others choose to

believe." The maiden slid her arm under Se'ar's back

and tenderly lowered her to the pallet once more,

feeling the nubs of her spine poking against the age-

slackened skin.

The old woman gazed up into the maiden's tranquil

face and sighed. "You are a good gift, Ma'adrys. I

Wish I could tell you how often I have prayed to the

Lady of the Balances to work her holy transformation

on you and make you my own blood. But she would

not hear the prayers of a cheat and a trickster."

,It doesn't matter," the maiden comforted her.

"Even though I am not your blood kin, in all these

years you have never begrudged me a single mouthful

of your bread."

The old woman sighed. "I only hope that you

haven't suffered for sharing it. It was contaminated

with the taint of how I earned it. Oh Ma'adrys, what if

that's it? What if that's what's kept you from your

:heart's desire? What if that's the flaw that Bilik saw in

you when he forbid you tom?"

"Hush," the girl repeated, dabbing at the old

woman's waxen face with the damp cloth. "Don't

upset yourself. That's over and done with."

"But you're such a clever girl, such a good girl, you

shouldn't be excluded just because--"

"Mother Se'ar, what good will it do either of us

knowing why my petition was refused?" the girl asked

quite reasonably. "It won't change the way things

are."

"True, true." The old woman's voice trailed away

like water trickling through stones. Her eyelids low-

ered. It seemed that she slept. The maiden settled

back to oversee her rest.

The old woman's words came suddenly, taking the

girl by surprise. "Maybe it wasn't my fault after all,"

Se'ar murmured, her eyes still closed. She spoke as if

she were alone in the hut with none but herself to

hear. "The girl's kind, yes, but headstrong, too bold

about speaking up to the men, too demanding. Well,

who can hold her to blame for that? Father lost in the

winter storms before the Feast of Flowers, mother

died birthing her, poor youngling left to run wild...

Not that she ever had a proper mother to start, that

one. Easy to see where the daughter's strange ways

come from. Yes, everyone knew. Where that mother

of hers came from, I'll never know. Mad, most likely,

and driven out of her own village by folk with more

sense than we ever had. All her high-sounding talk, all

just ravings, ravings. Offensive to the Balance, her life

thrown back into the scales to pay for her words, poor

soul. Poor mad soul."

Beside the deathbed, the maiden Ma'adrys sat back

on her heels, her back unnaturally stiff, her face

drained of all expression. She tried to exclude the old

woman's babbling from her mind, but she could not:

It was nothing she hadn't heard before, all the village

talk of her dead mother. As a child she'd gotten into

more than a few fist fights with the other children

when they'd taunted her by repeating the things

they'd heard their parents say. She'd lost more battles

than she'd won, and the elders had always punished

her afterwards for the few fights she did win. When

she was a little older, she'd tried to train herself to

play deaf to the gossip and the snide remarks, the

whispers she always heard behind her back, but it was

beyond her best efforts. In time, she'd learned that

there was only one safe thing to do when someone--

even a dying woman no longer responsible for her

own ramblings--spoke of her mother.

'TII be right back," she announced, rocking back

on her heels and standing without needing to push

herself up from the ground. "The air in here's too sour

to do you any good. We should burn some dawnsweet

flowers to freshen it. It's early in the season for them,

but I think I saw a patch in bloom in Avren's meadow

yesterday. I won't be gone long." She was out the door

before Se'ar could utter a word to stop her.

The old woman never noticed her departure. Her

eyes remained closed, her wrinkled lips moving over

words that were no longer audible to any but herself.

tn time she drowsed.

In dreams she was young again, a maiden herself, a

girl whose brilliant golden eyes ensnared half a dozen

suitors. She was sitting on the steps of the village

shrine to the Six Mothers, whispering delicious se-

crets with her girlfriends--Dead now, all long since

dead! a wraith of reality moaned through the dream--

when a shepherd came by, down from the mountain-

side, and the girls paused in their chatter to tease the

lad. Like all shepherds, he was slow witted, with

hardly more brains than the beast that led his flock.

Everyone made fun of the shepherds, no one thought

anything wrong about doing so, and the shepherds

themselves lacked the intelligence to understand that

they were being ridiculed.

But something was wrong: This shepherd under-

stood. He heard the dream-young Se'ar's taunts and

scowled darkly at her. She was taken aback for an

instant, then shrugged her misgivings aside. He can't

possibly understand. t she thought. He's only a shep-

herd. Ma says if you give one of them a piece of bread,

he'll be as likely to stick it in his ear as in his mouth.

No hurt's possible where there's no wit to mind what's

said. Having reassured herself, she launched another

verbal barb at the lad, and capped it with a rude

gesture with both hands.

But she was wrong. He did understand. He let out a

roar of anger and leaped for her, siezing her by the

shoulders and shaking her while her girlfriends fled

screaming.

She wanted to scream too, but she was helpless,

voiceless. Her captor shook her harder, harder still,

until she fell down and her teeth chattered together

and her head banged against the steps of the Six

Mothers' shrine. She could still hear her girlfriends

screaming, only now their screams had turned into

her name, shouted over and over while the enraged

shepherd tried to batter the life out of her bones.

"Se'ar! Mother Se'ar!"

She snapped back into the waking world, a hand on

her shoulder shaking her, but gently. She looked up'

into the broad, bland face of Kinryk, the innkeeper's

son, and what she saw there made her forget to

breathe. Easygoing Kinryk, lazy Kinryk, slack-faced

Kinryk who everyone said was only a half step off

from shepherdhood himself, this same Kinryk had

become transformed. His whole face was alight, radi-

ant with bliss, and his squat, flabby body quivered

with the effort of trying to contain some astonishing

piece of news.

"She's gone!" he gasped. "Oh, Mother Se'ar, I was

there. I saw it myself. She's gone! She's been taken!"

"Who?" A veil of shadow passed over the old

woman's eyes, the sign that always visited her when

she knew that a death was coming to the village. She

knew: "Ma'adrys." It was a whisper, like a fall of

pebbles into one of the mountain crevasses.

She went to gather flowers to sweeten my sickroom,

Se'ar thought. Avrenk meadow. The main track up

that side of the mountain 's fine, but the shortcutk still

half gullied out by the winter storms. She wouM take

the shortcut, my wiM one, in a rush to come back to

tend me, and now--

"Have they... fetched her body?" The old woman

tried to sit up, her thoughts roiling. Taken so young,

poor unlucky orphan. No man's child, a mad mother's

daughter. Ay.t As if a hard life were the fee to let us

purchase the hour of our death./Lady, in mercy give me

back only a handful of my oM strength. Let me see to

the proper arraying of her corpse. She gathered breath

with a great effort and panted, "Thatmthat box by

the hearth, My wedding dress. She shall have it for--

for her burial. Take it. Take it andreand bring it

to--"

Kinryk laughed as if Se'ar had told him the best jest

in all the world. "Dress, Mother Se'ar? Ma'adrys

needs no dress where's she's gone. I saw them take

her, the shining ones, and the light almost blinded me,

but when I got my eyes back I saw her clothes left

there in the grass, all in a muddle. No need for any but

the robes of star and sunlight where she dwells now."

Se'ar's almost toothless mouth gaped. What was all

this gabble? Some of the village wags must have put

the boy up to it. Their idea of sport, setting the

innkeeper's slow-brained son to play a prank on a

dying woman. Passionately she wished for strength

enough to flay this fool alive with curses. But I am too

weak... too weak, she thought. And my poor Ma' adrys

is gone.

"Evramur!" the boy sang out, and from outside the

old woman's hut she heard a chorus of excited voices

echoing the holy name. "Our own Ma'adrys, worthy

to be taken living into the eternal garden, the shining

city, the undying refuge Evramur!"

"Evramur," Se'ar repeated, unable to believe with

her mind what her heart had at last accepted. From

the time she'd been old enough to hear the good

teachings, she'd heard the name of Evramur, haven of

all blessed spirits after death. Yet sometimes a spirit

appeared whose great goodness couldn't wait for

death to free it from the flesh. That spirit's power was

so intense that it cried out until the servants of holy

Evramur came seeking it and took it, flesh and all, to

its rightful home. Se'ar had heard of folk so blessed,

but such privileged ones always seemed to live leagues

away; they were the stuff of legend.

.No longer. Se'ar still saw the veil of death before

her eyes, but now she knew it was not for Ma'adrys.

She gazed at the innkeeper's thick-witted son with

pity. "Kinryk," she said softly, "carry me into the

air."

Beaming with joy, he scooped up the old woman's

frail body and carried her out of the hut. Night had

fallen, one moon already visible high above the hori-

zon, the other two lagging behind. By rights all the

villagers should have been in their own homes, eating

their evening meal, getting ready for another day of

hard life and harsh labor. Instead, the narrow,

crooked path that led up to Se'ar's hut was choked

with people, all chattering and wide eyed. When they

saw the old woman, they surged forward, hands

outstretched.

As if my touch could make them holy because she

touched me, Se'ar reflected. She tilted her head back

and looked up into the night sky.

Yes, there it was, beyond the glimmering disc of the

lone risen moon: the red-gold sphere that the good

teachings named the Gate of Evramur. She imagined

that if she stared at it long enough, hard enough, she

could almost see the laughing face of her lost

Ma'adrys waiting for her just beyond the threshhold.

I have bartered holy gifts for gain, Se'ar thought. I

will never see you again, my dear one, for I have made

my spirit unworthy of Evramur. The realization broke

her heart and she began to weep.

No, Mother Se'ar. Was it an illusion or did she truly

hear Ma'adrys's voice in her ear? Recall the good

teachings: It is never too late to make your spirit

worthy. Not even now. One last time, use your gift as it

was meant to be used.

"Yes--" The old woman's word was lost in the

clamor of the crowd closing around her. While they

strove to reach her, she placed her lips close to

Kinryk's grimy ear and whispered, "Listen to me,

boy. I have seen the veil of your death before my

eyes." She felt him freeze and quickly added, "Don't

fear it. It's yours no more. For her sake I will take it

from you, take it upon myself. For the sake of the one

who walks the shining gardens of Evramur in flesh

and spirit. For Ma'adrys--"

The breath caught in her throat and was gone in a

gurgle and a sigh. Se'ar was dead. Kinryk burst into

sobs, crying out the news of the old woman's final

prophecy and the blessed Ma'adrys's first miracle. At

the back of the crowd, the oberyin Bilik surrepti-

tiously wiped his cheeks and called down a curse on

any villager who might dare to pillage the blessed

Ma'adrys's own miserable dwelling in search of relics.

Overhead, the red-gold Gate of Evramur looked

down impassively upon the wailing villagers, as dis-

tant from their deaths as from their lives, and on the

hillsides the shepherds danced and dreamed.

Chapter One

"WHAT IS THE reason for this delay?" Legate Valdor of

Orakisa slapped the conference table, leaving a

ghostly impression of his splayed palm on the for-

merly spotless surface. The cluster of multicolored

crystal baubles at the base of his official topknot--

each one the mark of a successfully completed diplo-

matic mission--chimed and jangled against each

other. "This is unbearable! A deliberate insult! When

we return, I will file a complaint with the Rec-

lamation. I will not be treated in such a way by a

merew"

"Father, please." The younger Orakisan at Legate

Valdor's elbow spoke in a voice so burdened with

embarrassment as to be almost inaudible. His own

pale silver topknot was adorned with a single, lonely

crystal pendant small to the point of invisibility. "I

am sure that there is a perfectly logical explanation

for her absence."

"With respect, I agree with your son, Legate,"

Captain Picard put in. "Ambassador Lelys herself

requested that we call this briefing. She would gain

nothing by delaying it on purpose."

"Nothing but another chance to remind me

thatre" The legate's voice dropped to angry, incom-

prehensible mutterings. From his place directly across

the table from Valdor, the android Mr. Data observed

the older Orakisan's sulks and grumblings with

marked interest.

At that moment, the door to the conference room

opened as Dr. Crusher entered, foliowed by a tall,

alien woman of striking height and exotic beauty.

"Sorry to be late, sir," Dr. Crusher said, taking the

chair between the captain's and Counsellor Troi's.

"Ambassador Lelys made it a point to call for me in

person, but just as we were about to leave, I was

unavoidably detained." A mysterious smile flickered

over her lips.

"Unavoidably?" Captain Picard echoed, regarding

her closely. He preferred his mysteries solved.

Before Dr. Crusher could reply, the alien woman

spoke up. "Captain Picard, I accept full responsibility

for our lateness. If you must undertake disciplinary

action against anyone for the offense--"

"Madam Ambassador, I assure you that nothing

was farther from my mind," Picard replied. "I only

wished to knoWre"

"Good," the Orakisan woman cut in. "Then we can

proceed. Captain, if you please." She wore a gown

that held all the brilliant shades of an Earth sunset,

the sleeves mere wisps of iridescent drapery secured

at wrist and shoulder with sunbursts of faceted gem-

stones, and when she extended one slender hand

bearing an information chip it was with the sinuous

grace of a trained dancer.

"Certainly, Ambassador." Picard felt a momentary

twinge of irritation at being interrupted, but he

quickly put it aside. He inserted the chip into the

control unit at his fingertips, and immediately a

holographic projection of a gold, blue, green, and

white planet set against a field of stars materialized in

the center of the conference table.

"Ah. Skerris IV," said Mr. Data automatically.

"S'ka'rys," the ambassador corrected him. She

glided to the head of the table where a chair stood

empty at Captain Picard's right hand. Instead of

sitting in it she passed it by in favor of the vacant seat

next to the younger Orakisan male. As soon as she

settled in beside him, he took an intense interest in

his datapad. The crystal pendant in his hair trembled

violently.

Ambassador Lelys noticed none of this. "I beg your

pardon," she said to Mr. Data. "I did not intend to

make you feel inadequate. I should not have expected

you to know how the name is pronounced in the old

style."

"Quite the contrary, Ambassador." Mr. Data re-

plied. "In preparation for your arrival aboard the

Enterprise, I thoroughly familiarized myself with Old

Skerrian as a matter of course, as well as all variations

of that language as currently spoken throughout the

Skerrian daughterworlds. As I understand it, it has

become the fashion for the Reclamation colonists on

S'ka'rys to adopt old-style ways as much as possible,

although I must confess I fail to see a practical

purpose." He cocked his head briefly to one side, then

added, "S'ka'rys. I believe that means the mother in

the old language."

Ambassador Lelys inclined her head in agreement,

a charming smile illuminating her face. Silky hair the

color of a storm-ridden sea swept forward, clusters of

crystal droplets making their own music. Like her

colleagues, she too wore a topknot, but hers was the

merest tuft of hair caught up in a tiny golden ring. She

was not the sort of person who needed to rely on

official symbols to establish her authority. "You are a

credit to the Federation, Mr. Data. I am privileged to

count you among our most valuable resources. With

someone like you helping us, I feel certain that our

mission will succeed."

"Thank you," the android replied. "However, given

the nature of the problem that your colonists are

facing, I would say that Dr. Beverly Crusher will be a

much more valuable resource than I."

"Why do I suddenly feel like a med probe?" Dr.

Crusher murmured to Counsellor Troi behind latticed

fingers. The Betazoid declined to comment.

"Yes, of course," Ambassador Lelys was saying,

turning the power of her smile on Dr. Crusher. "As

soon as I volunteered for this mission, I made it a

point to request transport by the Enterprise, chiefly

because I knew you were assigned to this ship. Your

reputation as a xenobiologist is extraordinary, and we

may well need the extraordinary before we are done. I

can not begin to tell you how unnerved I was when we

were informed that you might not share this voyage

with us."

"I was attending the Ark conference on Malabar

Station," Dr. Crusher explained. "I received direct

orders from Admiral Mona to return immediately.

Unfortunately, the orders didn't include more than

the barest briefing. I know that there's a health crisis

of major proportions on Skerris IV"mshe didn't even

attempt to pronounce that world's name in the old

styleto"but if that's so, I don't see what we're doing

in this sector, nowhere near the Skerrian system, and

heading farther from it by the minute."

Ambassador Lelys sighed, her eyes full of sorrow as

she gazed at the holographic projection slowly turning

on the conference table. "How beautiful," she said,

the ornaments in her hair chiming softly. "And how

great a pity that we did not appreciate its beauty soon

enough." She fell into a heavy silence which no one--

not even the impatient Legate Valdormtried to break.

From his place, Captain Picard, too, regarded the

slowly turning projection of Skerris IV. The story of

that lovely world's ugly fate was a familiar one--far

too familiar--in the scope of universal history. Once

a thriving word, Skerris IV had made great techno-

logical progress, conquering interstellar travel and

seeding countless other worlds with her colonies.

"What fools we were," said Ambassador Lelys with

a sigh.

"Fools?" Legate Valdor snapped out the word, his

pale skin darkening with rage. "Is this how you speak

of the Ancestors? Mark me, Ambassador Lelys. Disre-

spect to me is one thing, but disrespect to the Ances-

tors must and will be reported to the--"

"Very well, Legate," Lelys said with the patience of

a mother dealing with a fractious four-year-old. "Re-

port me with my blessing. You have done little this

entire trip but collect incidents, evidence, and as-

sorted sins I have supposedly committed. By the time

you present the full catalog of my offenses, I will have

retired from the diplomatic service, so by all means,

enjoy yourselfi"

The legate's fleshy lips pressed together, the dull

orange irises of his eyes expanding until the thin rim

of white surrounding them was no longer visible. He

started to rise from his chair, fists on the table.

"Father~" The younger male tentatively reached

out to sieze the legate's arm. "Father, Ambassador

Lelys only said the same thing that you and I have

heard many times from the lips of respected Council

members. She speaks within the law. The glories of

the Ancestors are holy, but the follies of the Ancestors

must be acknowledged."

"A fool's law," Legate Valdor muttered, subsiding.

He jerked his arm away from the younger male.

"Small wonder you know it so well, Hara'el."

The younger male bowed his head and meekly said,

"Yes, Father."

"But is it not true, Legate Valdor, that any law that

allows us to extract present wisdom from past errors

is not only valid but essential?" Mr. Data asked. He

received a venomous look from the Orakisan for his

troubies.

"What are we to learn?" Valdor demanded. "To this

day, no one is certain of precisely what became of

Skerris IV." He pronounced the world's name Federa-

tion style, and gave AmbassadOr Lelys a look that

defied her to correct him.

"You are quite right, Valdor." Again she rose above

the potential confrontation with her subordinate.

"We do not know the precise chain of events that led

up to the complete annihilation of our motherworld.

For many, it is enough to know that such a disaster

happened, that it did not need to happen, and that we

must strive to ensure that it never happens again. The

death of S'ka'rys was more than the death of a world,

it was the death of knowledge,"

"Not--not all knowledge, Ambassador," Hara'el

ventured. For this, he was rewarded with one of

Lelys's warmest smiles.

"Your pardon," she said kindly. "I did ask you to

handle this briefing, didn't I? Yet here I am, in love

with the sound of my own voice." She did not notice

how the color rose up Hara'el's neck when she said

love. "Please proceed."

Hara'el cleared his throat and fidgeted in his chair,

then stood up and tried to compensate for his nerv-

ousness by adopting a professorial pose. With an

unnecessary gesture at the holograph, he said,

"Orakisa was one of the more recently founded

Skerrian colonies, relatively speaking, and was an

extremely prosperous world from the first. We were

very fortunate on both those counts, since prosperity

allowed our founders the leisure to preserve history;

Otherwise we might have come to believe that we had

no roots beyond Orakisa after S'ka--Skerris IV--

destroyed itself." He, too, used the Federation style

pronunciation after an uneasy sideways glance at his

father "All knowledge of the motherworld--and thus

of our sister colonies--would have been lost."

"What I don't understand," Dr. Crusher began,

"excuse me for interrupting, but Ambassador Lelys

told me some of this on our way to the conference

room and I didn't quite follow her. What I don't

understand is why Orakisa didn't know of the other

Skerrian colonies until recently."

"In their wisdom, the Ancestors would have it so,"

Valdor intoned. His expression made it clear that, as

far as he was concerned, that was enough of an

explanation for anyone.

Ambassador Lelys disagreed. "We can only theorize

from recovered and reconstructed information, but

most likely it was one of our Ancestors' deliberate

policies concerning colonies. As far as possible, new

daughterworlds were kept in ignorance of older ones,

and more established daughterworlds were not in-

formed of new foundations, which was an easier

task."

"Yes, but why?" Counsellor Troi asked. "What did

the motherworld hope to gainT'

"Independence." Hara'el spoke up, and most of the

people at the conference table did a double take, as if

they'd forgotten his presence even though he was

standing right in front of them. "If you believe that

your settlement is isolated from all others, if you

don't even know that there are any others, you will

develop self-reliance because to your mind, you have

no other choice."

"And diversity," Legate Valdor put in. "Nothing

evolves, nothing progresses without diversification,

not even a CUlture. Our Ancestors, in their wisdom,

realized this. If every daughterworld were a clone of

her sisters, then any cataclysm capable of wiping out

one would be able to destroy the rest. But if the

daughterworlds were forced to evolve separately, then

in time of crisis, one colony might have developed the

resources to save her sisters."

"Except for the fact that no daughterworld was

aware that her sisters even existed," Ambassador

Lelys amended. "I am afraid that our Ancestors'

motives were far less noble: If the daughterworlds

couldn't possibly rely on each other, they would have

to rely on S'ka'rys. Until a colony was secure enough

to be totally self-supporting, there would be no

chance of the motherworld losing control of it."

Legate Valdor shot out of his seat, the pendants in

his topknot clattering loudly. "I will not allow myself

to be subjected to this--this pollution! You may

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Prologue"DEATH!"OLDSE'ARMOANED,writhinginpainonherpallet."Ayme,deathiscoming!""Hush,you'reill.Liequietly,"themaidensoothed,kneelingonthehardfloorofbeatenearth."Youmustsaveyourstrengthifyouwanttogetwell,MotherSe'ar,youknowthat.""Well..."Theoldwomanrepeatedthewordasifitwereoneofthelocaloberyin'smagica...

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Star Trek - TNG - To Storm Heaven

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