But most of the tactical skills he had learned in the short time since coming back aboard theWyoming were useless here, on Planetoid 437. There was nothing to defend against, other than the heat, the thirst, and the hunger. There were no animals or sentient aliens or anything living other than the imposing trees that were spiked into the cracked and otherwise barren ground.

A hot breeze pushed through the shelter, momentarily stirring Tuvok from his meditative trance and his memories. Rather than let it bring him completely out of his contemplative state, he incorporated the feeling into his mind, matching it to recollections of his second trip into the desert as a child, when he had run away from home after his petsehlat , Wari, had been killed. Inconsolable when his parents told him that Wari did not have akatra , he had embarked on the ritual oftal’oth , making his way over the desiccated wasteland of Vulcan’s Forge, and across the jagged mountains that marked its eastern boundary.

The winds that pushed against him during that trip were just as broiling and powerful as those here now. The difference was that then he’d had a mission to purge himself of emotion, to feel nothing except dispassionate, irrefutable logic. He had returned after four months away from home, having realized that goal, if only temporarily.

Now, however, he had no objective save basic survival. And of somehow keeping his captain—his friend—alive as well.

But no matter how he tried to distract his mind with memories and ruminations, Tuvok knew that his chances of success were almost nonexistent.

And yet some suppressed part of his consciousness was being warmed in an entirely different way…by the dim yet still-visible light of hope.

DAY 9—STARDATE 26806.7 (22 OCTOBER 2349)

Tuvok heard Akaar’s scream, but he couldn’t tell immediately where the sound had come from. He pushed at the rocks around him, glad that the baked sandstone was crumbling and loose rather than hard and impacted. That was probably the only reason he had been able to dig his way out of the avalanche of rocks that had covered him after the ground had collapsed beneath them both. The only way Tuvok had been able to distinguish up from down was by feeling the rocks sliding downward as he pushed them away.

Desperate because of their nearly depleted supplies, he and Akaar had embarked on an attempt to find water and sustenance earlier that day. They found a crevasse only four feet across, but which went down for at least a hundred meters or more. Perhaps more importantly, one of the planetoid’s curious trees grew near the edge of it, and they could see what appeared to be parts of its root system further down, near a ledge.

Wedging themselves against the side, they had climbed down, inch by agonizing inch, toward the ledge. Akaar had reached it first, and had begun scooping soil away from the roots, which appeared to be oddly brittle and unyielding. The soil was clumpy and slightly damp, however, indicative of the presence of underground moisture.

Tuvok had just moved onto the ledge when the lip of it crumbled way, sending him tumbling down into the ravine. He wasn’t sure how far he had fallen, but he knew that the plug of soil and debris that supported him now was likely just a temporary clog; he needed to get out of there, immediately.

Moving as little as possible, even though the dusty air made him want to cough and vomit, he felt for the sides of the crevasse, then pushed against both sides, his feet on one and his hands on the other. He rolled his body around so that he was facing downward, allowing the debris that was still tumbling down—and that which had already collected on his body—to fall away into the planetoid’s interior. Slowly, he began making the climb back up to the surface, his undernourished muscles screaming in agony.

He heard Akaar bellow again, from above him, though he couldn’t tell if his cry was intended to find Tuvok, or to express pain.

“I am here, Captain,” he called out with as much volume as his desiccated throat could manage, although through the dust that caked his mouth he wasn’t certain if he could have been heard two meters away, much less the twenty meters he estimated that he had fallen.

Eventually, he crawled his way back up to what was left of the ledge. There he saw Akaar, whose face was contorted in pain.

“Captain, we need to return to higher ground. It isn’t safe for us down here.”

Akaar grimaced. “You will have to help me, Tuvok.” He held out his hands, one clutching the other, and then opened them. A bleeding gash had been torn through his right hand, showing tendon and bone. And a large volume of bright red blood.

“How did this happen?”

Akaar looked back over toward the recessed area and the portion of the exposed root system. Tuvok saw blood spattered on several of the roots.

“They are just as sharp and unyielding down here as the trees are up there,” Akaar said, his voice tremulous with pain. “I grabbed for one when the ledge gave way and ended up running my hand completely through.”

Tuvok felt his muscles aching and trembling as he held himself taut. “I will help you get back to the top, Captain. We will climb out together. You must hold onto my torso as best you can.”

“You cannot support both my weight and your own,” Akaar said, protesting. “We will both fall to our deaths.”

Tuvok took a sterner tone than he normally did with anyone other than recalcitrant children. “Leonard, Vulcans possess much greater strength than do most other humanoids—even Capellans. I will be able to get us back to the surface. But time spent arguing is a waste of my admittedly depleted energies.”

Akaar nodded, either persuaded by Tuvok’s logic or unable to argue further because of his pain. Gingerly, he reached out and wrapped his thick arms around Tuvok’s midsection. Tuvok felt him jockeying with his hands, probably to have his good hand hold the wrist of the injured one.

“Are you prepared?” Tuvok asked, trying to keep his croaking voice steady.

“As prepared as I can ever be,” Akaar said.

Tuvok began to climb, immediately feeling the larger man’s weight as it trebled his own. He concentrated on breathing deeply, attempting to channel every erg of energy in his body into his arms and legs. He moved one arm up, then the other, then a leg. A fourth movement, and he felt the entire weight of Akaar on him; his captain was free of the ledge.

As he began the excruciating climb back to the surface, Tuvok attempted to clear his mind of everything save his goal. The more overheated his body became, the closer he knew he was to the top.

As he climbed, his mind wandered. He felt as though his body was becoming heavier, as though whatever internal gravimetric aberrations allowed this improbably small worldlet to maintain a Class-M atmosphere—a super-dense core? he wondered—had chosen him and Akaar for special torment. It was as if the planetoid itself wanted to draw them both downward to their deaths.

Foolish. Illogical.

He began to imagine instead that he was back at the outskirts of Vulcan’s Forge, intent on completing the time-honoredtal’oth survival ritual.

His mind raced, despite all of his mental disciplines. By the seventh time he had replayed the entiretal’oth rite in his mind, he saw the bright light above, and knew that they had almost reached the top.

And the desolation that lay above. In which they would both surely die.