To catch something as primal as these creatures, I must think like them,TPol reasoned. It was, in fact, one of the most basic lessons of intelligence and espionage work; to infiltrate, one had to learn to think like ones opponent, even to the point of becoming one of them if necessary.

She knew that she could never becomeone of the Frislen, unless she contracted the contagion that had ravaged them. From what the Security Directorates files had indicated, that would require both intimate sexual contact and a significant blood‑to‑blood transfer; the majority of the Frislens victims were not transformed, however, but served instead as food for their cannibalistic appetites.

Despite their savagery, the Frislen were apparently not without technological defenses, as the VShar team had learned shortly after disembarking here. A targeted electromagnetic pulse had rendered not only all of their scanning and communication equipment useless, but their weaponry as well. The pulse should have been their cue to leave, as TPol and Eskren had reasoned, but Denak had ordered them to move into the caves that apparently housed the Frislen. They were armed now only with smaller weapons barely suitable for hand‑to‑hand combat, although TPol knew that she could throw the hand‑length tricheqon her belt with deadly accuracy. Once, at least.

TPol felt her boots come into contact with something on the floor, and she crouched defensively, peering into the darkness around her. One hand moved forward, and her fingers connected with something crust‑covered and tubular. Further exploration told her that what she had stumbled upon was the skeletal remains ofsomething. She couldnt be certain what it was. It wasnt humanoid, but it was too large to be one of the smaller creatures that were indigenous to this world.

A sehlat,she finally reasoned, exploring further and finding not only clumps of fur and gristle, but also the sharp tusks that were indicative of adolescent‑to‑fully‑grown members of the urso‑feline species that this forbidding worlds Vulcan settlers had brought with them.

Her mind racing, TPol quickly began removing certain parts of the sehlats skeletal structure. She winced as she broke several of the bonesthe sound of the cracks was like cannon fire in the tunnelsbut her fingers told her that she had guessed correctly about the brittle condition of the remains.

A short while later, TPol heard sounds nearby. She couldnt tell from which direction they had emanated, but she assumed she was now being stalked anew. Crouching lower, curled almost into a ball, she quickly finished making her preparations, then stood. Shaking, she used a bone fragment to scratch the top side of her shoulder, where the fabric of her sedmahhad already been torn. She felt the blood well up immediately; she had been cut deeply enough to bleed, but not enough to cause nerve damagenor, she hoped, to affect her defensive abilities.

Knowing that the Frislen could detect her scent even more strongly than before, TPol sprinted forward into the darkness, barely able to see the tunnels around her. She sensed movement behind her, but dared not whirl around to face her pursuers. The only thing she knew for certain was that the farther into the caves she got, the closer she would come to their nest.

The floor abruptly gave way in front of her, and she pitched forward, falling into a shallow fissure or ravineor a trapand she felt the creatures leap on her the next moment, their hands pummeling her over and over again, their nails slashing at her. She struggled against their powerful limbs, but after an indefinable length of time allowed herself to go limp. She focused her conscious mind inward, ready to wake up fully with the speed of a charging le‑matyafrom behind her meditative shield against both mortal terror and physical pain.

They carried her with them instead of dragging her, and she was grateful for that, even as she continued to focus herself on what was to come. Eventually, she heard screams she could identify as coming from Vekkr, but as they came closer, the wailing subsided into guttural cries and moans. She hoped silently that if she should survive the mission, she would be able to find the strength to deliver a painless death to any of her comrades who had become infected.

She remained limp as a rag doll as her captors unceremoniously dumped her against something hard, allowing her to land in a semiseated position. Vekkr was mostly silent now, though in her meditative state, TPol could hear several of the other sounds that were reverberating through the dark, rocky chamber. Within her mind, she withdrew, as if she were a hungry, ravening Underlier waiting to strike from below the baking sands of Vulcans Forge.

A rough hand grabbed her face, its jagged fingernails digging into her chin. TPol allowed herself to come back to full consciousness, but willed herself not to tense up into a defensive posture that the creatures might notice. She opened her eyes, however, and found herself staring into the ravaged face of what appeared to be a female humanoid.

Her features were vaguely similar to those of Vulcans, but her eyes were more prominent and seemed to have multiple lids, nictitating from the sides as well as from top to bottom. The womans ears tapered to graceful points at their tips, but everything else about her external pinnae struck TPol as less than aesthetically pleasing; they were flattened backward, were roughly the same size as the womans entire face, and were covered in bulging greenish veins.

In a movement that might have been a smile had she had lips, the Frislen woman allowed her mouth to tilt upward on the sides as she noticed TPol studying her. Four rows of rotted teethwhich included sharpened, predatory incisorsfilled her oral cavity.

“You will be mine, I think, the woman said, speaking in a perfect Vulcan Standard dialect.

TPol was less interested in what the statement meant than she was in keeping the woman talking. As naturally and fearfully as she couldshe didnt really have to feign the trembling that had overtaken hershe peered around the woman into the dimness of the cavern beyond. She saw three more of the Frislen, as well as the remains of Yekda, and the body of Vekkr, on top of which lay a fifth Frislen, who was moving languidly, almost as if in a drunken state.

“What are you planning to do with us? TPol asked, hearing the quaver in her own voice.

“You will be mine,the woman said again. “That one belongs now to Gromstl, she said, gesturing toward the creature atop Vekkr. “The others, she added, sweeping a clawed hand toward a grate in the floor that apparently covered a prisonlike pit, “will be food. Or fun. Or they will belong,too.

TPol understood that the womans emphasis on the word “belong meant that she intended to infect TPol.

“Why are you preying on the people here? TPol asked.

The woman tilted her head, a scabrous tongue sliding against one of her forward rows of sharpened teeth. “To survive. To feed. To procreate. To be a reminder, always.

TPol didnt know what the woman meant, but needed to keep her talking until the time was right to move. “A reminder of what? That savagery exists in the worlds we inhabit? That sentient beings can debase themselves to the level of carnivores or parasites?

The woman pushed TPols head back roughly and rose to a crouch as she released a noise that might possibly be interpreted as laughter if it hadnt sounded so much like howling. She looked around at the others, then returned her gaze to TPol, who had gathered her arms close in around her torso, clutching herself the way a frightened child might.

“Perhaps one of these days we should allow someone to returnto tell the others what we really are, the woman said. “The origins of what you call the Frislen. Before the experiments, the mutations, the banishment.