Free Signs from Heaven by Phaedra M. Weldon

Corsi said and started to move around Gomez. Bart felt for her—she was concerned for Fabian. They all were.
    â€œNo, Domenica,” Gomez said. “You stay here—make sure we don’t trip another Disruptor trap. Let Captain Scott and Tev keep working on getting the shield down.”
    â€œWe’ll have it ready in a jiffy, Commander, worry not. Scott out.”
    Carol moved to stand in front of two of the odd pictures hanging on the wall where she and Gomez came in. Bart sighed and looked at the pieces to see what was so fascinating. It occurred to him that those—including the other eight positioned in exactly the height between the floor and ceiling—bore a strange resemblance to the one he’d noticed near the entrance. Just as Corsi had said.
    He turned to his left to look at the three behind him. The left painting was a brilliant red, the middle one green, and the right one blue. Looking to his right where Carol stood, the two pictures were light blue and a pinkish sort of red.
    â€œCarol?” Gomez strode across the room to where the cultural specialist stood.
    He turned back to the original three behind him and visualized them on the floor like a great puzzle piece. Only five of the ten pieces had any sort of title. He typed them into his padd. They all translated into phrasal definitions—much the way Japanese or Andorii did.
    Where He has been. Where He shall travel. As above. In station be.
    Bart grunted.
    The one at the front of the museum had said So below .
    He swallowed as he took a closer look at the farthest painting—the one to the right of the pole. It said As above .
    No. It couldn’t be.
    Not the same translation found in China on Earth centuries ago?
    As above, so below. The second line was, As within, so without.
    The others were merely directions. Forward, back, and still.
    Could it be that easy? That the key to moving Stratos was within. Within the innermost museum? The city’s central core?
    That the schematics to the city propulsion—the plans, the blueprints—all hidden within the paintings themselves?
    Hidden in plain sight—and the Stratos Dwellers always believed the Troglytes were too slow and stupid to figure things out. They could read blueprints—simple enough.
    But what if what they needed was actually a part of the artwork?
    â€œCommander, I think I might have found something.” He turned and smiled at her. “The city plans”—he pointed to the walls—“They’re in the paintings!”

Chapter
7
    G old entered sickbay, his irritation building with each passing second. “All right, Lense, I’m here. What’s so damned important?”
    Lense motioned him to her. “We need to get Fabian out of there.”
    â€œRight now, I can’t beam anyone in or out of Stratos. The whole city’s sealed up tight—not even the Ardanan transmat devices are working.”
    â€œWhat kind of defense is that?” Lense asked.
    â€œScotty says it’s the work of a madman,” Gold said. “He believes it was installed by Plasus during the verbal war with the Federation. Because Kirk had Scotty beam Plasus to the surface, Plasus installed a safeguard against that. What we don’t know is if the restart of the dampeners keyed it, or if it was the tractor beam Conlon threw around the city.”
    â€œCan’t you just somehow grab the city again and put it on the ground?”
    â€œNot according to Conlon. That one second of power the da Vinci used to hold Stratos in midair caused a sufficient drain on our own power. By more than forty percent. She and her team are working on building the power back up, but we can’t try that again soon. And the Bataan is still too far out of range.”
    Lense absently rubbed at her belly as she drew her lips into a thin line. “Sarjenka sent me up the latest scans on the parasite dendrites.” She leaned her head to the