Maker

by Michael Jan Friedman

• ISBN13: 9780743448581
• ISBN10: 0743448588
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-08-31
• Publisher: Star Trek

Summary

Ensign Andreas Nikolas, heartsick over the loss of his Mirror Universe lover, has resigned his post on Jean-Luc Picard's starship, the Stargazer, to seek a home on the freighter Iktoj'ni.

All he wants of his new life is a chance to forg

Excerpts

Chapter One Andreas Nikolas had run into his share of alien species. He had attended the Academy with them, worked alongside them on starships, eaten with them, slept with them, laughed with them, and risked his life with them.But he had never encountered anyone like the personage who towered before him in an otherwise empty corridor of the Yridian cargo haulerIktoj'ni.Thisalien was taller than Nikolas by half a meter and remarkably thick-chested beneath his coarse, dark tunic, giving the impression of enormous strength -- though he was quite clearly padded elsewhere with a surfeit of flaccid flesh. His oblong head was bald except for a long, lank circlet of dark hair, and his mouth was little more than a gash in his face.But his most distinctive feature by far was his eyes. They glowed a dazzling silver beneath the overhanging ledge of his brow, fixing Nikolas where he stood."I am glad you are awake," said the behemoth, his voice a hair-raising jangle of stones.It echoed off the cone-shaped mineral deposits that hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor -- because it wasn't quite true that Nikolas and the alien were alone in the duranium-sheathed passageway. There weren't any other sentients there, but there was an abundant collection of orange- and blue-veined stalagmites and stalactites -- the kind that seemed to belong in an underground cavern, not in the corridor of an Yridian cargo hauler.And if that weren't disconcerting enough, the projections were growing before Nikolas's eyes, lengthening and adding girth with the help of the mineral-bearing water streaming down their sides.Where was the water coming from? He didn't know. TheIktoj'niwasn't supposed to have any water supply. Its crew washed with the help of sonic emitters and got their drinking water from replicators, the same as their food.So why were there crystalline threads descending the smooth, shiny surface of the stalactites? And how could mineral deposits have gotten so robust in the short time Nikolas had been stretched out on a lower deck?Awake,the alien had said. Butwashe awake?He had lost consciousness sometime during the attack on theIktoj'ni.And though he appeared to have woken up, bruised and limping and lacerated but alive, it was tempting to believe he was still asleep -- because otherwise, how could he explain the madness to which he had woken?Several days earlier, Starfleet had warned the cargo hauler about a wave of unidentified aggressors boasting formidable weaponry. But it hadn't said anything about ship's corridors turning into subterranean caves."After all," the behemoth continued, in the same discordant voice, "you are going to be a big help to me." He smiled, exposing a rampart of thick, blunt teeth as his mouth stretched from one side of his face to the other. "Abighelp."Nikolas didn't like the sound of the remark. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice sounding strange even to his own ears.It gave him a moment's pause. Had he suffered some damage in the attack after all, beyond the cut over his eye and the painful stiffness in his limbs?The alien didn't answer Nikolas's unspoken question -- not out loud, anyway. But as the silver orbs in his eye sockets glowed brighter, Nikolas heard something in his brain.My doing,said the monster, in a small, harsh whisper.All my doing.A telepath...?Nikolas thought.And the alien's smile spread even wider, though the human wouldn't have believed it possible. He seemed to be taking pleasure in Nikolas's discomfort.But it's not enough,the colossus breathed in Nikolas's mind.I need more.Suddenly, the human felt a shiver rise from the depths of his being and take hold of his entire body -- a shiver of shock and helplessness, because the alien wasn't just speaking inside his head anymore. He was dredging up memorie