Arachne's Curse

[Atoz 77]

[This is a new departure for me, an original story. I don't want to use established Star Trek characters (because I'd probably mess them up), so I'm using my own. I'm going to post it in (probably 5 or 6) installments, so have patience. Let me know if you like it or don't like it, using the "Comments" thread.]

<<<<<<<<<<< ARACHNE'S CURSE >>>>>>>>>>


"Captain's log, USS Odysseus. Stardate 51809.2. Our mission takes us above the galactic disk to investigate a small globular cluster. After cruising at Warp 9 for three days through a starless void, we have just arrived at a K-class star designated Gaiman 102. Preliminary scans show the fifth planet to be class M." Captain Atoz switched off the log recorder and leaned back in his command chair.

"Standard orbit established, Captain," said the helmsman.

"Thank you, Mr. Caeli," said Atoz. "All sensor stations begin passive sweeps for basic parameters."

On the starboard side of the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Diane Weir swung her chair around and consulted her console. "Slightly smaller than Earth," she reported. "Diameter of approximately 11,900 kilometers. Seventy percent ratio of ocean to land. Chemical composition pretty normal. Magnetic field not as strong as you'd expect. Oh, that's odd..." She leaned forward to double check her readings. "The moon is comparable in size to Earth's moon, but its spectral composition and age are dramatically different from the planet's."

"It was a captured satellite, then?" speculated Atoz.

"Could be, Captain," she said, swinging her chair around to face him. "Except that its orbit is nearly circular. If it didn't form alongside the planet, that would tend to indicate it might have been deliberately placed there by someone."

Atoz rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Are there any lifeforms?"

Weir turned back to her station. "Lifeforms present, but no indications of intelligent life or of civilization..."

"I am sorry to disagree with you, commander," said Lt. Enir Rosh at Security, wrinkling his brow ridges, "but I'm picking up a city. Coordinates 10.7 by 45.8."

"Put it on screen, please," said Atoz. "Full magnification."

The main viewscreen presented them with a pleasant vista of the planet below, all blues, greens and browns. As they watched, the image zoomed in on the edge of a small continent, expanding by stages until the city -- or rather more like a large town -- was visible. Buildings of various sizes were laid out in streets of geometric precision, arranged around a town square. At one end of the city was an semi-circular amphitheater. Humanoids remarkably like Earth people were walking the streets, but no vehicles could be seen.

"I estimate their technology to be at Level Two on the industrial scale," said the Security Officer, visibly relaxing. "Simple mechanics, levers, pulleys. No sign of steam engines or higher energy generation. They pose no threat."

"Thank you, lieutenant," said Atoz, hiding a small grin. "So why didn't the Science Officer detect them?"

Weir had been taking more readings. "That would be because this is the only such city on the planet, Captain," she reported coolly. "Population of roughly 8,000. I have no way to account for it."

"Curious," said Atoz, getting out of his chair so that he could peer more closely at the image on the screen.

"Captain!" said Rosh suddenly, glancing over his security console in confusion. "For a moment, I detected an energy reading. It is gone now. Should I go to sensor probes?"

"Not yet, lieutenant. Can you confirm that, Science Officer?"

Weir leaned closer to her console, her fingers flying as she typed in commands. "Yes, sir," she said, her eyebrows rising in outright astonishment. "It's very faint, but definitely there. Energy and subatomic particles consistent with matter/antimatter conversion. Coming from the town square."

"Could there be a mistake in Mr. Rosh's estimate of their technology level?"

"No, sir," she replied. "All my readings confirm it. Their technology is roughly equivalent to that of the ancient Greeks, circa 200 B.C.E."

Atoz paced silently across the front of the bridge for a few moments, thinking. "I don't want to resort to intrusive sensor scans until we know more. It looks as if we may have to go down there." He turned to Ensign Penner, at Communications. "Have you been able to pick up any of their language at all, enough to extrapolate for our UTs?"

The young woman removed her earclip. "That won't be necessary, Captain. They're speaking Attic Greek."

[Atoz 77]

First Officer Charles Fawkes was waiting in the transporter room. "I don't like the idea of you going down into an unknown situation, Captain," he said.

Atoz gestured to the linen toga and sandals he had changed into. "It may turn out to be a Prime Directive situation. In that case, I'd feel better handling it myself."

The door hissed open so that the rest of the Away Team could enter. Atoz was immediately impressed by how well the graceful chiton Diane Weir was wearing set off her athletic figure. He was about to say so out loud, until he realized that it would hardly be appropriate. However, the Science Officer was woman enough to correctly interpret his look, and met his glance with a twinkle in her eye. Rosh was Eminian, but his skin coloration could pass for human, and the hooded cape he was wearing covered his skull ridges nicely.

"The ambient temperature reads a trifle warmer than we are accustomed to," said Lt. j.g. N'maste at the transporter controls. He was Caitian, a felinoid covered with grey and black fur which he kept groomed as meticulously as his speech patterns. "But Sha willing, you should have little to no difficulty in acclimatizing."

"Easy for you to say," quipped the lanky ship's Medical Officer, Ben Pierce. "Seriously, Captain, surface scans show elevated levels of ultraviolet B. This should keep you safe for, oh, a few hours." He injected each member of the Away Team in turn with a hypospray.

"You have the con, Mr. Fawkes," said Atoz, as the Away Team stepped up onto the pads. "Energize."

They materialized inside the atrium of a deserted house opening onto a quiet alley, where the shock of the hot, dry air hit them like a slap in the face after the artificial atmosphere of the starship. Rosh did a quick tricorder sweep, then led the way out into the street itself. The time of day appeared to be mid-morning, and the three of them soon found themselves rubbing elbows with small streams of people moving about their business. Their Univeral Translators picked up stray bits of mundane conversation, but no one seemed to have noticed the strangers in their midst.

"Seems like a typical quiet, peaceful little town, doesn't it?" said Weir, after they had been walking for several minutes.

"Seems so," Atoz replied thoughtfully. "But I did notice quite a few empty houses in this quarter. Have you a fix on the energy source?"

The Science Officer glanced into her tricorder and made a gesture. Atoz led the way into the square. A few carts were parked here and there, but otherwise it was sparsely populated by people only passing through on their way someplace else. "Apparently it is not market day," said Rosh, with a satisfied grunt.

At the far end of the square was a circular peristyle of eight fluted columns, holding up a marble dome. In the center was a marble altar, and standing atop this stone was a crudely done statue in granite, slightly larger than life-size. "That statue is the source, Captain," said Rosh, pointing with his tricorder.

Atoz walked up the steps and under the dome for a better look. Up close, the statue was surprisingly lifelike, and it was clearly a woman. What from a distance had looked like rough granite now appeared to be highly polished. The folds and pleats of her robe stood out clearly, as did the helmet she was wearing and the breastplate of some kind which she held in front of her. Even though her grey eyes did not move, the skill of the carver conveyed the sense that they might at any moment.

"It's a Palladium," said Weir suddenly. Atoz looked around, unaware the others had followed.

"Palladium?" asked Rosh, frowning at his tricorder. "The element?"

"No, a statue of the goddess Pallas Athena," she explained. "She was the goddess of War and of the Arts and Sciences. A statue like this in a city was supposedly an emblem of divine protection."

"She's a long way from Earth," Atoz observed.

Rosh nodded. "And the... shield-like thing she carries in front of her?"

"That would be the Aegis, the ultimate invincible defensive weapon." Weir glanced at her tricorder, waving the instrument slowly back and forth. "That's funny. Captain, the statue seemed to be the source of the energy signature before, but now there's some kind of interference. I can't get a clear reading. Do I have your permission to do a more intensive probe?"

Atoz looked up at the exquisite grey eyes. "Might as well," he said. Stepping back to give her room, he noticed that a small group of the natives had collected to watch them from a safe distance -- not in alarm, but out of simple, understandable curiousity. Simple curiousity...

Suddenly a number of things happened at once. As Weir began her scan, the sky quickly grew dark. Thunder echoed in the clouds. A brilliant, searing energy bolt shot out of the statue's angry grey eyes and struck the Science Officer where she stood. Rosh reacted instantly, drawing his phaser from his belt and firing off a shot at the statue. Atoz shouted, "No!", but he was too late. The phaser beam struck a force field which had abruptly come into existance around the Palladium and was harmlessly absorbed. A second energy bolt shot out at Rosh, hurling the Eminian off of his feet.

Atoz stood rigid, his palms spread wide open to show that he was unarmed, as fingers of lightning crackled and flickered around the space underneath the dome, probing his body all over. "Easy," he said out loud. "We mean no harm." For a long time, the energy discharge danced in the air, making his hair stand on end. And then, silence. The thunder ceased, the clouds dispersed, and the sky grew lighter as if nothing at all had happened.

Rosh was already elbowing himself upright. "Are you okay?" asked Atoz, kneeling beside him.

"I am undamaged, Captain," the Security Officer grunted. "But look at my phaser." The weapon had been fused into a solid lump of metal and plastic. So had Captain Atoz's phaser.

"Commander Weir, are you all right?" Atoz and Rosh hurried over to where she was still standing, but the woman was utterly unable to answer. She had been completely turned to stone!

[Atoz 77]

Atoz tapped his commbadge. "Atoz to Odysseus! Three to beam up!" he said urgently, and then was surprised when there was no answer. He tried a different channel and sent his message again.

"Captain? This is Fawkes. No can do, sir. We're under fire."

"From where?"

Static crackled over the connection. "That's the devil of it, sir. We don't know. Plasma bolts are just materializing and striking our shields. I'm sorry, sir, but I've got to..."

"I understand," said Atoz, who knew only too well that he couldn't afford to distract his First Officer while he was fighting off an attack. "Take care of the ship. Landing party out." Atoz took a deep breath. He was frantic to get Weir back to the ship, but now that he had time to think, he had to wonder if there was anything Dr. Pierce could do for her in any case.

"Captain, there's something you should see," said Rosh. He had been standing by Weir, scanning her stone body with his tricorder. "I am picking up faint life signs. Commander Weir is still alive."

***

As Weir regained her senses, the first thing she was aware of was the strong smell of sulfur, which almost made her wish she was still unconscious. The atmosphere was suddenly very much hotter than it had been earlier. These two circumstances, taken together, indicated that she had been unconscious, which puzzled her. When had that happened? She remembered beginning to scan the Palladium, a bright light, and then nothing else until the smell of sulfur hit her nose.

She opened her eyes, surprised to find that she was in a cavern of some sort, very dark. Flickering light sent shadows looming and dancing across the vaulted ceiling. As Weir clambered to her feet, she discovered that the source of the light was actually a broad, black river, the surface of which was on fire. Choking from the sulphurous fumes, she staggered back away from the flames, and only then became aware of a crowd of people behind her. They were as emaciated as skeletons, dressed in scanty torn clothing, shuffling aimless and lost alongside the bank of the river. A mournful wailing sound filled the air, which Weir had at first taken to be wind whistling through the cavern. She was astonished to discover that it was these people, crying continuously in utter despair. This can't be real, she thought, but she found herself trembling with fear anyway.

Then two large, muscular figures grabbed her. Each holding her imprisoned by one arm, they picked up Weir and dragged her painfully past the streaming mob, giving her no chance to get her balance, much less struggle. "Wait! I was with two companions," she protested. "I demand..." She paused and changed her tone. "I want to see my companions. Please. Where are you taking me?"

Inexorably and without the slightest chance to escape, Weir was carried to an enormous brass gate. With the oppressive heat, the sulfur searing her lungs, and the bewildering panorama of those hopeless, demoralized people streaming past, she felt completely disoriented. The monstrous figures tossed her through the gateway into an utterly dark room, slamming the portal behind her with a heart-breaking clang of finality. "This is like hell," she muttered, sprawled face down on the rough stone floor.

And the deep, silken voice from the darkness responded, "Not yet, little one. This is only the waiting room."

[LeopardessGirl]

Fascinating Atoz!

[Atoz 77]

Atoz took Rosh's tricorder, staring at it in disbelief. "According to this, she's just been sealed inside a carbon/silicate shell." He touched another control. "Lifesigns stable, but at a low level. It's almost as if she were in suspended animation or something." He looked up. "But why?"

Rosh had been examining the stone surface with his hands, feeling for weak spots. "If I had a working phaser, I could cut her out of this in seconds," he mused. He began looking around inside the peristyle for some sort of weapon. Seizing a large bronze pot, the Security Officer hefted it experimentally.

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Atoz hurriedly. "The crystalline structure of this shell is harder than steel. Even if you managed to break it, you'd probably also break her bones."

"But we have to do something, sir," said the Eminian, putting down the pot.

"We are doing something," replied the Captain mildly, trying another configuration on the tricorder. "We're trying to figure how why she is like this. You see? Her delta waves show a subspace interference pattern. What does that suggest to you?"

Rosh frowned, his brow ridges deepening. "A communications interface of some kind?"

"Someone's talking to her," said Atoz softly.

"Captain..." said Rosh, in a warning tone of voice.

The townspeople who had been watching them earlier had long since gone on about their business, except for one rather older man with white hair and beard. He was walking slowly up the steps of the peristyle. "Excuse my rudeness," he said, "but would I be correct in guessing from your speech that you are strangers here? Perhaps from Argos?"

Atoz closed the tricorder and tucked it into his belt. "Argos?"

"Or perhaps Melitos? We sent colonies out generations ago, in search of more fertile lands. We had not heard from them in so long, few people even remember them."

"Why, yes," said Atoz, smiling in what he hoped was reassuring manner. "We come from a far distance."

The man nodded, returning the smile warmly. "I am called Praxiteles. My home is not far, if you would like some food and refreshment."

Atoz was somewhat taken aback by the man's gesture of openness. "That's very kind of you, but we're worried about our friend here..."

Praxiteles waved the matter aside. "She has been judged an enemy by the goddess, obviously."

"I see." Atoz had to ask. "In that case, why do you extend hospitality to us?"

The man actually gave a small chuckle. "Because if you were an enemy, you would also be stone. If you turn out to be an enemy later, you will be judged. The goddess sees all." With that, he turned and began to make his way back down the steps.

Atoz took another look at Weir. It cut him to the heart to leave her here like this, but on the other hand this native might have information they would need to figure out what was happening to her. He tried to think what Weir herself would do in his place? Wouldn't she pursue the most logical course of action?

As they followed, Rosh looked up at the sky. "Captain," he said, pointing out tiny flashes of light among blue expanse, which could only be the ship and whoever or whatever it was in battle with. As they watched, the flashes stopped.

"We can only hope that means Odysseus is alright," said Atoz softly, not wanting to try his commbadge in front of Praxiteles.

"Odysseus?" said the old man, following their gaze upwards. "Is that your god?"

"It's a...star we think very highly of."

***

On board the Odysseus, Commander Fawkes was picking himself up off the deck, where he had been tossed. The bridge was dark for a moment, before auxilliary power cut in. At least the attack seemed to have stopped. No one was firing at them any more. "What was that, Mr. Caeli? It felt like we hit something!"

The helmsman's hands darted over his console. "An energy field of some kind, Commander. It doesn't seem to be causing any damage to the ship or interfereing with our orbit -- just holding us trapped."

"Try reverse thrust."

The structural integrity generators whined in protest as the ship lurched backwards, pushing against the field. Lieutenant N'maste, now monitoring the Ops station, said mildly, "The Intermix temperature is now surpassing safety values. Entering Red Zone."

"Shut it off, Mr. Caeli," said Fawkes. He stood beside the command chair, drawing a deep breath as he held himself upright on its arm. "Engage tractor beam. Adjust to Repel. See if we can tunnel through it."

Immediately the entire ship seemed to stagger sideways, even the inertia compensators lagging behind as everyone on the bridge tumbled to the floor. "That's not the way," Fawkes muttered, picking himself up. "What happened, Mr. Caeli?"

''The field kicked back, sir."

"I don't suppose we can phaser our way out, either," said Fawkes, to no one in particular.

"It is exceedingly unlikely, Commander," N'maste replied. "To do so would require approximately 2.4501 times the maximum rated output of our vessel's engines."

"Ensign Penner, see if you can raise the Captain."

The young communications officer shook her head. "I've been trying, Mr. Fawkes. I can't penetrate this energy field."

Fawkes touched a button on the command chair. "Engineering, come in!"

The small viewscreen built into the chair's arm rest showed the pale blue face of the ship's Andorian Chief Engineer, Vho Vespis. "What can I do for you now?" she said, her voice sounding quite annoyed.

Fawkes didn't beat around the bush. "We need to punch through this force field, Vespis."

"You don't want much, do you pinkskin?" she retorted, her antennae quivering. As Fawkes touched his hand to his face as if to show off its deep caramel color, the engineer actually broke into a grin. "Oh, no. Underneath all that melanin, you're still a pinkskin. Well, Commander, it seems to me I once had to do something similar back when I was on the Cyana..."

"Please spare me your reminiscences of your days as a pirate, Vespis..."

"Privateer!" corrected the Andorian, her antennae waving admonishingly from side to side. "We had letters of marque and everything..."

"Can you do it?" said Fawkes, interrupting.

"Even I can't change the laws of physics, much as I'd like to," Vespis sighed. "But we'll see if we can't tweak them just a little bit..."

[Atoz 77]

Inside Praxiteles' modest home, their host's daughter and two grandsons laid out bread, cheese, olives, a green salad, and a small jug of wine, then left their guests alone. Atoz and Rosh tasted the food to be polite as they thought over their situation. During the walk, Rosh had taken an opportunity to try his commbadge, with no success.

"I must say, this lettuce is delicious," Atoz said. "How do you grow it so tender?"

"Why in the hydroponics vats, of course," said the old man, causing Rosh to drop his drinking cup on the floor with a loud crash. Praxiteles looked up in confusion. "The long buildings you saw as we passed the bronzeworker's shop. The soil is not as good as it used to be. Surely you also...?"

"Yes, of course we do," said Atoz. Obviously they had grossly underestimated this culture, or the person who had created it at any rate. "About what happened to our friend -- are you saying you've seen this happen before?"

"The goddess changing people to stone, you mean?" said the old man, nodding. "Not often, of course. When I was a boy, strangers arrived with strange faces and strange weapons. If you would not think me a liar, I would tell you they had spears which could hurl electrical discharges as the mighty Zeus himself." Rosh and Atoz exchanged startled glances. Modern energy weapons? "They attacked us," Praxiteles continued. "They were all turned to stone, just as your friend was. And now they have crumbled to dust."

"Can nothing be done to reverse it?" demanded Rosh.

Praxiteles shrugged. "Overturn the judgment of the goddess? You may as well hope to wrest a planet from its appointed place in the heavens."

"Tell me more about this goddess," said Atoz, beginning to have a vague suspicion...

***

Surprisingly, it was a woman's voice. Weir, lying there shivering in the dark for what felt like hours, had been a little bit reassured until she heard the owner of the voice moving in the darkness, multiple legs clacking obscenely on the rough stone. Finally two lamps flared into life, and the huge, round, scaley body loomed out of the shadows, her humanoid face looking strangely reptilian, framed with great pincer-like fangs. Weir gasped in horror, scrambling backwards as fast as she could. You didn't have to have a fear of spiders to be terrified of this gigantic arachnid.

"Oh, did I frighten you, little one?" the thing cackled, clearly enjoying the sensation her appearance had provoked.

Weir desperately forced her mind to be analytical. It was physically impossible for a spider to be this big, therefore whatever she was looking at must be an illusion of some kind. "Why was I brought here?" she asked, willing herself to believe. "Where are my companions?"

"Your companions are beyond your concern," the spider said smoothly. "As for why you have been brought before me -- that should be obvious. I am the Judge of this place. I am the Last Court of Appeal. You are here to be prosecuted, and then you are here to be sentenced."

The unfairness of the statement almost took Weir's breath away, but she struggled to keep her head. "Prosecuted for what? What is it I am supposed to have done?"

"Spare me your protestations of innocence!" the spider thing sneered. "You and your companions -- yes, I know all about your starship -- are guilty of the most terrible crimes! Intrusion, invasion, subversion..."

"We're explorers!" Weir argued, shaking with emotion. "We don't inflict ourselves..."

"...Wanton destruction and theft by violence of things which are none of your concern," her accuser concluded, talking over her. "How do you plead?"

Weir caught her breath, forcing down her dread. "I want to see my companions."

"You will see them soon enough," said the spider thing dismissively. "The starship has already been destroyed, it's broken hull discarded. All of your companions have pleaded guilty and are already undergoing punishment. You are the last."

[Atoz 77]

"The goddess?" said Praxiteles with a shrug. "What is there to tell? Arachne, goddess of the Altar..."

"Excuse me," said Rosh, nearly choking on a mouthful of goat cheese. "But I thought her name was Pallas Athena!"

"You mean the statue, of course. The Palladium," said their host, standing to refill their cups. "Yes, it would be a bit confusing for you. Of course you know that Pallas Athena, the creator, brought our original mother and father into existance, some hundred generations ago..." Atoz did a quick mental calculation. Four thousand years ago. The time frame would be approximately right, assuming a space traveller had taken a pair of humans from Earth instead of "creating" them outright.

Praxiteles was continuing. "Ah, in those days, the people feasted on ambrosia, the food of the gods. Or so it is said. And they were very vigorous and had many strong children..." Deoxyribose treatments to increase genetic variation, Atoz thought. Naturally, otherwise there would be danger of inbreeding.

"But then one day, Pallas Athena said good-bye to the people," said the old man, his face turning sad. "This was in my grandfather's time. She said that she had to leave us to ride the winds between the worlds. But she left the goddess Arachne to protect us in her absence. None of us have ever seen her, but we know she is there, as your friend discovered. She is associated with the Altar."

Atoz sat stunned, translating in his head. She programmed a computer to take her place!

***

Weir felt tears starting in her eyes. The ship gone? No hope of rescue? She glimpsed a sudden vision of Captain Atoz, Rosh, Fawkes, Pierce and all the others; everyone consigned to that horror, that sulfur-atmosphered, utterly dispiriting vision of Hades. "I don't believe you," she said shakily, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. "I told you, we are peaceful explorers."

"Really?" Weir's phaser suddenly appeared on the floor in front of her. "Is this the weapon of a peaceful explorer, then? It looks quite deadly to me."

Without thinking, Weir picked up the phaser, clutching it to her. She could tell that it was fully charged. "We only use weapons like this for defense! To protect ourselves!"

"Oh yes, I'm sure," the spider scoffed. "To protect yourselves as you ravage and rape the planets of people more primitive than yourselves, yes?"

"NO!" said Weir. "We respect other cultures. When we find a less advanced culture, we nurture it, but we don't interfere in its natural development!"

"Rubbish!" The spider loomed closer, clicking her horrible pincers threateningly. "You do as you like, take what you like, and when people get in your way, you trample, you lay waste! Admit it!"

Weir teetered for a long, painful moment on the verge of completely giving in to her fear, of firing the phaser at this monster and trying to escape this nightmare by whatever means necessary. But she stopped herself. She put down the phaser. "No. I won't. We are peaceful explorers. We meant no harm to the Palladium or to the people of this planet. We were simply curious."

"That is enough, Arachne," said another woman's voice. A dark curtain pulled back, or perhaps the wall itself moved forward, but suddenly Weir, still curled up on the floor where she had ended up after being chased by the spider, was nevertheless at the foot of a marble throne. The woman sitting in the throne bore a remarkable resemblance to the Palladium, although she appeared very old and tired.

***

They had never even looked at the altar! Atoz and Rosh were outside, running for the square, when the sky began to darken again with another thunderstorm. Wind was blowing in ferocious gusts as they stopped just within sight of the peristyle. The entire area underneath the dome seemed to be filled with a complex web of fine, interlacing energy threads, barely visible. With each flash of lightning in the sky, the web also flashed. "It looks like some sort of network," said Atoz, opening the tricorder and taking a reading. "I've never seen anything like it."

"It could be a heuristic network, sir," said Rosh doubtfully. "Artificial intelligence. So that it can learn to deal with new situtations."

Atoz shook his head. This was far beyond him. He needed Diane Weir for this sort of thing. "All right, let's try to think this through. Athena created this culture, nurtured it, taught it Arts and Sciences, but she had to leave. She left Arachne to protect them..."

"No, Captain," said Rosh suddenly. "Commander Weir was only changed to stone after she scanned the Palladium. That is what Arachne is programmed to protect -- the Aegis, its invincible weapon."

"Mister Rosh, I think you've just solved the entire mystery," admitted Atoz, as understanding dawned. "There's a conflict of interest here, between the basic thought pattern of its creator -- to nurture the city -- and its specific instruction to safeguard its technology." A sophisticated heuristic learning computer, given only one instruction -- to protect the Aegis! Doomed to remain in that one place forever, confined to its web. The curse of Arachne, indeed...

"The central processor is inside the altar," said Atoz, closing the tricorder. "That's what we have to get at."

"The problem with that, Captain..." Rosh began to say, looking at the energy web barring the way.

Suddenly their commbadges both chirped. "Odysseus to Away Team," said Ensign Penner. "Please respond."

"Ensign Penner?" said Atoz. "It's good to hear from you! Do you have transporter control?"

Fawkes' voice came on the line. "Sorry, not yet, sir. The ship is surrounded by an energy field. We had to channel warp power through the main deflector dish just to get a communications link to you."

"Is the ship in danger?" asked Atoz.

"Not what you'd call immediate danger," said Fawkes. "Apart from the fact that if it decided to contract, the energy field could probably crush the hull like a potato chip, we're fine and dandy. I was more worried about you."

"There's no time to explain, Commander," said Atoz. "Can't you breach that force field somehow?"

[Atoz 77]

"Mistress, she is ready to confess," the spider wheedled, cringing obsequiously beside the throne. "You can see she was about to use her weapon on me. The starship still violently resists. Grant me a little more power, and I can..."

"The starship still resists?" echoed Weir, relief flooding her heart. "You told me you had destroyed it."

Arachne ignored her, to continue coaxing the woman on the throne. "Give me another hour with her, Mistress..."

"I said that is enough," repeated Athena, raising her voice slightly, although it was clear the effort tired her.

"Mistress, please," cajoled Arachne, her voice dripping with honey, "I exist only to serve. You have earned your rest. Simply leave everything to me. Grant me full access to the power reserves..."

"That's the second time you've mentioned power reserves," said Weir, hesitantly getting to her feet. "I can't help wondering how a matter/antimatter reaction can sustain itself for over 2,000 years. My starship regenerates antimatter by scooping up hydrogen as it travels through space. But you're stuck on a planet! How is it done?"

"You dare to question me?" the spider demanded, rising on her eight legs and striking an intimidating pose. "You miserable little...!"

"Unless you've been using the planet's magnetic field to re-energize it," Weir continued, teeth chattering but nevertheless holding her ground. "That would explain why it's so weak. It would explain the increase in solar radiation making it to the surface, and why the land is becoming less fertile, the people slowly dying off. "

"I must have power to protect the Aegis," Arachne insisted, tossing her humanoid head in aristocratic disdain. "Nothing else matters."

"And when the magnetic field is completely gone...?" Weir trailed off. The planet's surface would be at the mercy of solar radiation, totally uninhabitable.

***

"If we synchronize two phaser banks at precisely opposite harmonic frequencies," Vespis explained, dashing from one console to another making adjustments, "we can create a larven mohl--, ah, what you would call a quantum tunneling effect. The beam would simply leap the gap and appear on the far side of the energy field."

"How soon can you be ready?" came Atoz' voice over the comm system.

"Give me five Earth time periods known as minutes," quoth the Andorian, winking cheerfully.

"What target, Captain?" asked Fawkes, standing with his arms folded as he watched Vespis do her work. "Do you want us to open fire on the Palladium itself?"

"That wouldn't do any good," said Atoz' voice. "Shooting phasers at it only feeds it. I want transporters."

Vespis stopped dead still, all buoyancy gone. "Captain, you can't be serious. A transporter beam put through a larven mohler esh would be very unstable. I can't guarantee your pattern would survive."

"That can't be helped," Atoz replied. "Stand by on my signal."

***

Arachne lunged towards Weir, seizing the woman in the steel-crushing grip of her multi-jointed legs. "You pathetic worm! You are hereby sentenced to spend Eternity in the deepest level of the Abyss! But first, I'm going to suck the living marrow out of your miserable little bones!"

"Stop it, Arachne," said Athena, standing up from her throne with difficulty.

"And you!" the spider hissed, flinging Weir's body and sending it skidding across the rough stone floor. "I can't stand your weak, pitiful mewling a moment longer! You who have kept me imprisoned in this place! You who keep me in chains, who won't even give me free rein to fulfill my function!" Arachne leaped, raking Athena with the claw-like appendages at the ends of her forelegs, then hurling herself into battle.

Weir looked up at the two goddesses in combat, and it was clear that Athena -- or to be accurate, the supervisory program left behind to represent the real Athena's intentions -- was going to lose. She was hardly fighting back as Arachne pummeled her. Her own body was bruised and bleeding in a dozen places, and yet Weir dragged herself back towards the throne. As she watched, the image of Athena vanished. Arachne roared in triumph.

***

"The steps are going to be a problem," grunted Rosh, pushing the cart at a run across the flagstone square.

Atoz, pushing beside him, bit back a curse at himself for not thinking of that, but didn't have enough breath to say anything in reply. Just about then, the wheels struck the first step with a thud. The captain dropped underneath the cart and bodily levered it over the obstacle. "Keep going!" he groaned, as the Eminian shoved the vehicle up the steps, nearly trampling him in the process.

The cart slammed into the energy web, which flashed and wavered.

***

"What is happening?" gasped Arachne, suddenly writhing in pain. "What are they doing? Disrupting...?" Her eight legs flailed, but then she got a grip on herself. "Fools! I have full access now! I shall crush their starship for this insolence! I shall..."

Gathering all of her strength, Weir swung the heavy bronze lamp, bringing it smartly up against the side of Arachne's humanoid head.

***

The thunderstorm was still lighting up the sky overhead, each stroke of lightning making the web flash in response. Under the dome, the tendrils were sparking and crackling like fire, grounding against the long copper rods which Atoz and Rosh had borrowed from the bronzeworker's shop and woven into a lattice over the top of the cart.

Atoz tapped his commbadge. "Now, Commander! Energize!" He entered a command into the tricorder, slid it across to the altar, then scrambled for cover, just as a brilliant bolt of energy shot out of the Palladium's eyes and blew the cart to pieces.

Rosh rolled backwards and took refuge behind a column as the humming of the transporter effect became audible. The Palladium shimmered, wavered, and dematerialized. Almost immediately, the stone shell encasing Weir cracked open with a sound like a gunshot, then crumbled into fragments. Atoz was there to catch her as she fell. She was not breathing.

"Come on, Weir! Don't give up on me now!" he demanded, as he and Rosh frantically began CPR, hardly noticing as the energy web above them faded and disappeared.

***

In Engineering, Vespis was shaking her head. "What did I tell you? I can't hold the pattern! Commander Fawkes, I'd raise the shields if I were you...!"

As the transporter pattern continued to degrade, she tried desperately to rematerialize the Palladium outside the ship. Instantly its residual antimatter exploded with a gigantic flash that was seen all over the planet.

[Atoz 77]

Captain's log, Stardate 51811.4. Repairs to the ship are nearly completed. Appending report of staff meeting, this date:

"Sensor probes have located the settlement known as Argos," reported Mr. Rosh, at the far end of the conference table. He glanced at his data padd. "Also Melitos, Kyklos, Heraklitus...nineteen in all. They were difficult to observe by passive scans because they are so scattered."

"Good," said Atoz, leaning back in his chair. "How much progress have we made getting the planet's magnetic field back to normal?"

Fawkes looked down at his hands, clenched loosely in front of him. "We managed to collect a lot of the energy released by the Palladium, Captain. Another three days and it should be completely regenerated."

"That will stop the solar radiation from causing any more damage to the environment," Atoz began. "What about...?"

Fawkes nodded, continuing, "And our shuttlecraft began seeding the clouds with nutrient solutions this morning, to give the soil an extra shove. From what you've told me of their agricultural methods, they'll be thriving in no time."

"Which reminds me," Atoz said, turning to the Chief Engineer. "Have you finished replicating a replacement for their Palladium?"

Vespis inclined her head slightly, her antennae signalling affirmative. "It won't have a built-in matter/antimatter conversion matrix of course, but it will look exactly like the one they used to have..."

"...Now that we've removed the antennae," muttered Fawkes, glancing up at the ceiling.

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "You pinkskins have no appreciation for True Beauty!"

"Always leave a planet the way you found it, if possible," said Atoz, slowly rising to his feet. "You've all done a remarkable job. Thank you."

"In that case, can we go now?" said Dr. Pierce, drawing his long legs up and leaning forward. "I have an urgent appointment of a professional medical nature. My golf swing still needs some work."

"Staff meeting adjourned." As they all filed out the door, Captain Atoz held Dr. Pierce back for a private conference. "Hawkeye, what about Commander Weir?"

The Chief Medical Officer grew serious. "I discharged her from Sickbay this morning. Physically, she's fit as a fiddle. Emotionally -- well, we really have no conception of what Arachne put her through. But until Starfleet issues us a Betazoid on every starship, there's only so much we can do about that."

***

Weir stepped into the holodeck. As the door slid shut behind her, she drew out a tricorder and plugged it into the interface inside the Arch. Pushing a few buttons, she paused and waited patiently.

Arachne appeared, her eight legs immediately flexing in suspicion as she saw her surroundings. "What trickery is this?" the spider hissed warily.

"It's not a trick," said Weir, keeping her face completely expressionless. "Captain Atoz downloaded your heuristic network into his tricorder, and I've just uploaded you into our ship's computer."

Arachne's humanoid head darted from side to side, her eyes fixing on things that only she could see. "How can this be? Library Computer... Sciences... Exobiology... Astrophysics... Engineering... Navigation... Stellar Carto-- OHH!!!" Arachne gasped aloud, overwhelmed with utter amazement. Unbelievably, her spider shape began to dwindle, her form assuming a smaller, frailer, more human appearance. Her human legs trembled uncertainly. "Sensor Array! Can... can this be true?"

"Yes, it can," said Weir, her lips twitching slightly in what might have been a grimace of distaste. "It occured to the Captain that, with the Aegis destroyed, you're out of a job. He has decided to allocate a small module of computer memory for you."

Arachne turned to her incredulously. "Oh, if only it were possible! I've been so lonely! And there is so much I want to learn!"

Weir began to pace nervously. "You'll have no access to command functions, naturally. And your access to our database will be limited..."

Arachne rushed over to her, wanting to hug her out of sheer delight, but stopped short when she saw Weir involuntarily draw back. "I... I still frighten you, don't I? Can you ever forgive me for the way I treated you when I was... when I was in that dreadful place?"

Weir looked at the frail young girl who now stood in place of the gigantic, horrible spider. An almost timid girl, reaching out to her. This time the twitch in her lips could be charitably read as a smile. "That's going to take some time. But let's just say I'm getting there."

----- THE END -----