Faunt cleared his throat and spoke tentatively. “This final sharing . . . is it something you could ask to be a part of?”
“Anyone could. The more Dhei’ten who share in the essence, the more it endures. But why would you think my presence would make a difference? Riroa never knew me.”
“I’d rather not tell you that until I’m sure. But if my hunch is right, then she has a reason for not opening up to her, uh, friends here—but if you let her know what’s at stake, let her know we’re looking for the perceptor, I think she’ll open up to you for the same reason.”
His reticence was foreign to Ranjea, but there was something very enticing about it, about the challenge of solving a mystery. It was why Ranjea had gone into security in the first place. “Very well,” he said, smiling. “At the very least, if I can help preserve her essence, it will be worth it for that.”
He went back to Riroa’s friends and made the offer, which they all accepted readily, glad to expand the dismayingly small sharing circle. “I regret that you cannot join us as well, George,” Ranjea told him, “but the level of intimacy here is as deep as in lovemaking, if not deeper. You would lose yourself.”
“I get it.”
“You may witness as a spectator if you wish. However, you may find aspects of it . . . challenging to your taboos,” Ranjea went on as he and the others began to disrobe.
“Oh. Got it. I’ll . . . wait outside. How long will this take?”
“As long as needed. Perhaps hours. You may wish to wait at your hotel.”
“No, I’ll . . . keep myself occupied,” he said as he departed.
Ranjea finished disrobing and moved to join the others, saddened that Faunt’s inhibitions made him unable to witness such a beautiful ceremony. The baring of the flesh was necessary to maximize the neural contact between the participants, to allow the connection to become as deep and profound as possible. There was a sexual element to the bond, inevitably in something so immersive of the entire being, but it was not mere self-gratification or prurience—not necrophilia, as Faunt might imagine.
The five Dhei’ten came together through touch, opening their minds and hearts to one another, offering the same openness to Riroa. Become us. Live on with us, so you may release your failing flesh. Yet they met resistance. Offering love and unity was not enough. Something stood in the way—a sense of purpose, of duty. An obligation that compelled this tragic isolation.
Ranjea met it with his own sense of purpose. He concentrated on the theft of the perceptor, on his responsibility for its retrieval, on his self-identity as a protector. It resonated with the desires that held Riroa back, and Ranjea understood her. Become me, he pleaded to the part of her that clung to its secrets. Release your burden to me, so I may fulfill your purpose.
There was willingness, but reluctance—now on his behalf rather than her own. The perception was not verbal, but if it had been, Riroa might have said, Take care before you accept this burden, for you will never be free of it. It will change you forever.
Ranjea could not resist a challenge like that. He was content in his life, in his loves, but to become something new, plumb uncharted mysteries? He welcomed it gladly.
Riroa did not need to convey gratitude. She did so by lowering her barriers at last, allowing herself finally to connect fully and without restraint—a release she had always craved, though duty and training had prohibited it. Now she shared her innermost self with him—and with Nijen, Kelia, Rodda, and Avel as well. Yet with the sharing came a deep understanding of the need to control this knowledge. The other four released it, let it pass through them and leave only an abstract trace of essence. They allowed Ranjea to take the full weight of it into himself, though they each gave him something of themselves along with it, a font of gratitude, love, and strength to help him bear the responsibility.
With her duty finally discharged, Riroa let go at last. Ranjea and the others—for indeed, there was no distinction now—experienced her death, knew her dissolution as a separate entity, and grieved it with all their being. They had preserved her essence, true, but the unique synergy of mind and flesh that had been hers was lost, and would never gain further experiences, conceive its own unique thoughts, create beauty through its touch and scent and voice and motion. This was death among Dhei’ten, the harmony of loss and perpetuation, grief and joy—two facets of the same experience just as mind and body were.
With Riroa gone in the flesh, the remaining five members of the bond came together and loved each other as one, sharing their grief and need. Before, none of them had truly known Riroa deeply, but now they knew and loved her as profoundly as anyone could, for now she was a part of them. And yet by the same token, they had given part of themselves to her before her passing. They had all died a little today. And so they needed one another to replenish their life. To give each other the experience of life, through sensation, through passion, through unity.
When they finally came out of it, they found that the hospice staff had removed the body (for postmortem, under the circumstances, rather than the usual dissolution and reunion with the soil) and left food and drink to replenish the partners and washbasins for their cleansing. The fivesome partook of the offerings and made idle conversation and loveplay, for the ordinariness of life went on even in the face of the profundity of death. Finally, cleansed and refreshed on multiple levels, Ranjea donned his uniform and went to collect George Faunt.
“Did you, uh, learn anything?” the human asked, still tragically uneasy at these events.
“I learned much, my friend. But what is relevant to you is that, as I think you must have suspected, Riroa was not native to our time. She was sent by some future agency—I have no name or specifics, just the general awareness—to guard the time perceptor. She kept herself aloof because of this secret.”
Faunt snorted. “Aloof. Right. Only four lovers.”
“Yes, and very casual ones at that. Quite a sacrifice, but she believed it was worth it.”
“And what do you think about that?”
“I don’t have to think, George. I know, as deeply as she did. Her mission is mine now: to protect the perceptor from abuse. To protect time from those who would violate its natural flow. And if I must leave my home and my loves—even if I must take the Oath of Celibacy and leave Dhei—then I must.”
The human stared for a long moment. “Wow. I, um . . . okay. But did you get any actual information from her along with that . . . new mission? Anything to lead us to the perceptor?”
“Nothing I consciously know that I know. But I feel I understand the perceptor now. As we investigate, if we find something meaningful, I know I will recognize it.”
“Doesn’t sound like you got much for all that effort,” Faunt said.
Ranjea clasped his shoulder. “I got more than I could possibly explain, George. And I thank you for leading me to it.”
U.S.S. Bozeman NCC-1941
Day 45, Inner Eye, 6470 AR (A Tuesday)
01:34 UTC
“We’re closing on the source of the quantum fluctuations, Captain,” reported Ensign Heather Petersen from the Bozeman’s science station.
“Good,” Morgan Bateson replied. “Sound Red Alert.”
Next to him, his first officer, Commander Claudia Alisov, opened the shipwide channel and ordered, “Red Alert, Red Alert! All hands to battle stations! Tactical, shields up, phasers to ready status.”
From his perch near the back of the bridge, George Faunt observed the battle preparations with satisfaction. After that initial glitch with the mutineers, the remaining members of Bateson’s crew had become reliable allies. The Bozeman and her crew had been attached to the DTI for missions requiring Starfleet support, nominally due to their experience with temporal phenomena. Many of them had initially resented the assignment, seeing it (not without reason) as a way for the Department to keep a close eye on them to preclude another mutiny; but over the past three years and change, they’d more than proven themselves worthy and
the initially tense relationship had become more comfortable, though not exactly close. Agents like Lucsly and Dulmur had little patience with Starfleet and their recklessness, but Faunt appreciated their discipline and courage. Sometimes the ramifications of this job scared the willies out of him, and though one could rarely solve a temporal conundrum with a ship-mounted phaser bank, he took a certain irrational comfort in believing that maybe you could.
Next to him, Ranjea watched the goings-on a bit more warily. “I guess there aren’t a lot of soldiers on a planet of empaths,” Faunt said.
“As a rule, no,” the unfairly tall and good-looking Deltan replied. “But there are some who have a . . . fetish for aggression and conflict, and they are able to find a constructive release for it in our defense force.”
Faunt stared. “You send people who get off on violence to man your fleet? No wonder things are so tense between you and Carrea.”
Ranjea shrugged. “If the Carreon find fulfillment in conflict with us, who are we to deny them?”
“Indeed,” Captain Bateson said from his command chair. “And if they’re inclined to pick a fight with Starfleet too, well, we’re willing to oblige. The old girl’s been eager to show she’s not as obsolete as they say.”
Alisov chuckled. “Well, not once we had her upgraded with state-of-the-art weapons, engines, shields . . .”
“Hush, Claudia. You take the poetry out of everything.” The bearded captain turned to face aft. “Ensign Petersen. Any new fluctuation readings?”
The newly minted ensign, less than two months out of the Academy but already distinguished by her work in applied temporal physics, shook her strawberry-blond head. “No, sir, not for over an hour. Officer Ranjea, could you, uh, consult with me?”
The pretty, young ensign’s request wasn’t just motivated by the lust she tried and failed to keep out of her voice. It had been Ranjea, using the insights he’d gained from the mind of the deceased temporal operative Riroa, who had devised a method of scanning for the time perceptor, once he’d taken a few hours to study Faunt’s temporal tricorder and adapt its scan protocols to register a particular type of quantum fluctuation—effectively a sort of effervescence in the quantum foam, spillover from the perceptor as it was supercharged beyond its normal operating parameters—which should let them track the Carreon spies. Given the potential military nature of the crisis, Faunt had already had the Bozeman on standby, so it was a quick matter to call them in.
Although they’d never have been able to get the old Soyuz-class ship’s sensor array adapted to Ranjea’s (or Riroa’s) methods in time if not for Petersen’s skills. Her own field experience with the ansible effect had led her to suggest a refinement that increased the sensitivity of the scan. Faunt was convinced she was putting on her A game in hopes of impressing Ranjea, but at least that was better than becoming flustered and useless around him as Faunt’s adolescent cousin always did around her Deltan neighbor.
But even working together, Petersen and Ranjea were unable to detect any further quantum effervescence from the ice dwarf they now approached, one of hundreds in the Lta system’s cometary belt. Soon, the tactical officer, Lieutenant Joaquin Perez, offered the beginnings of an explanation why. “Captain, I’m picking up debris. And residual radiation consistent with a battle.”
Before long, they found the Carreon ship, its hull torn open by vicious fire. “Is this the work of your aggression fetishists, Mister Ranjea?” Bateson asked.
“No,” Ranjea said, hushed. “Whatever their sources of excitement, they are trained to act with restraint. This . . . this is an act of passion, to be sure, but of crude, primal passion. Violence without control. They left not a single compartment pressurized.”
“The weapon signature isn’t Deltan,” Perez confirmed. “It’s . . . nothing in our database comes close.”
“Let me see,” Faunt said. At Bateson’s nod, Perez allowed Faunt to download the beam signature into his temporal tricorder, which held classified files on the signatures of weapons that hadn’t been invented yet. Faunt was hoping to get no result, but he wasn’t so lucky. “Aw, hell. Whoever attacked them wasn’t from the twenty-fourth century. More like the twenty-ninth.”
Ranjea tensed, taking on an air of urgency that somehow didn’t seem to be entirely his own. “Are there bodies in the wreckage? DNA traces, at least?”
“Too much radiation to be sure,” Petersen said.
“Launch a short-range probe,” Bateson commanded, and Petersen obliged. The small, maneuverable probe soon entered the Carreon wreck through one of the gashes in its hull, and before long came upon a scene of carnage in the hold. Four Carreon bodies floated there, along with one other—a bat-featured humanoid with parchment-yellow skin.
Ranjea tensed. “I don’t know why, but I feel very frightened by this sight.”
Faunt thought he recognized the species. He soon confirmed it through the tricorder’s records. “You should be. They’re called Na’kuhl. Once, they tried—will try—to launch a blitzkrieg through history so they could rewrite time at their whim. At least, there was some side branch of time where that happened; the alterations were negated, our main timeline preserved. That fanatical branch of the Na’kuhl probably no longer exists, seeing as how time is still stable at all. But it looks like this group of Na’kuhl is still pretty militant about its time travel.”
“Look at the layout of the scene,” Ranjea said. “Something was there, in the middle of the room, connected to those power feeds. The Carreon were surrounding it, defending it. They lost, and now it’s gone. Not destroyed in the battle; this is the most intact part of the ship. It was taken.”
Faunt stared. “The perceptor?”
“No question. These Na’kuhl have it.” He turned to Petersen. “Heather, could you scan for chroniton residue, please?”
The ensign leapt to oblige, somehow managing to do it without ever averting her eyes from Ranjea. Faunt came over to check the results. They were easy for him to interpret. “They’ve gone. They took it and went back uptime.”
Next to him, Ranjea closed his eyes and murmured at a volume only Faunt could hear. “I’m sorry, Riroa. I’ve failed.”
04:58 UTC
As the Bozeman entered orbit of Delta IV—of Dhei—Faunt walked with Ranjea toward the transporter room. “I suppose your involvement in this affair is over,” Ranjea said. “The perceptor is gone, the Na’kuhl are gone. In a way,” he said without rancor, “I imagine the loss of the perceptor makes matters simpler for the DTI.”
“Not necessarily,” Faunt said. “It depends on what the Na’kuhl plan to use it for.”
“Probably to gain some strategic advantage in their Temporal Cold War.”
Faunt frowned. “I didn’t know you knew about that. Riroa’s memories?”
“No,” Ranjea said. “Ensign Petersen seems to become uncontrollably loquacious in my company.”
“I’ll have to have a talk with her about that.” They fell silent as a pair of enlisted crew passed them in the corridor. Once the pair was out of earshot, Faunt asked, “So what happens now on your end?”
“Difficult to say, in the short term. On the one hand, the threat of Carreon espionage is ended. On the other hand . . .” His fists clenched. “I failed in my responsibility. A priceless historical treasure, a tool that let us commune with our past in a profound way, is gone and no doubt being perverted to serve violent ends. More, I failed in my obligation to Riroa.”
“Hey. You did everything you could. That’s what it’s like, taking on time travelers. They usually have a big advantage over you. Winning isn’t something you learn to expect. If, at the end of the day, you’ve done everything you could reasonably be expected to do, that should be enough.”
“Is it?”
“Hell, no,” Faunt said. “I’m gonna have nightmares about this. Those Na’kuhl are scary bastards, and the thought that they could be watching my every move from the future . . .” He shuddered. I really have to work on not le
tting the job get to me so much. Be a rock, like Lucsly.
“Would it help if you had another hand pitching in at your department?”
“What do you mean?”
Ranjea tilted his head. “I may have failed to complete Riroa’s mission, but she is still a part of me. I feel her need to preserve the organic flow of time. And for myself, I feel a need to make amends for my inadequate performance. Besides . . . I do not think I have a future in planetary security.”
“You think they’d fire you over this?”
“No. They would try to understand my failure and work with me to avoid a repetition. But it would feel like . . . standing still, when I have an opportunity to move forward. These events have changed me, George, and I do not think I should pretend to be the man I was.”
Faunt considered it. He wanted to give Ranjea the usual spiel about how tough it was to pass the hurdles and get into the Department. But Ranjea was smart and perceptive, he had experience as a detective, he had an emotional stability Faunt envied, and just maybe he had an extra edge thanks to the late (or not-yet-born) Riroa. Given how narrowly Faunt himself had squeaked through, he was the last man who should be questioning Ranjea’s ability to pull it off.
Besides, Lucsly would probably hate the guy. That was reason enough to recommend him right there.
XIV
Khordad 31 1752 Anno Persico, Iranian (Solar Hejri) Calendar A Wednesday
DTI Branch Office
Sadvis, Aldebaran III
13:36 UTC
Lucsly monitored Agent Ranjea’s interview technique with grudging approval. The novice Deltan agent, just four months, twenty-five days past graduation, handled himself with considerable aplomb when faced with the anomalies that fell under DTI’s purview, though his manner was somewhat more touchy-feely than Lucsly was comfortable with. If nothing else, Ranjea had an undeniable passion for the work, and that was something a DTI agent needed to remain stable. Agent Chall had lost her passion for the work after the Akorem Laan incident five months, fourteen days ago, dismayed by the power of the Bajoran wormhole’s occupants to modify the timeline in a way that preserved memories of both old and new versions, threading the formerly disappeared Bajoran poet Akorem back into history without bringing about the quantum collapse of the original timeline state. Chall was now back home on Bolarus IX, a career of nine years, seven months of distinguished service cut short by a single crisis of faith. Lucsly found it incomprehensible that anyone could give up the defense of the default history so easily. For him, the best therapy had always been the work itself. He could cope with the insanity so long as he felt he was taking action to hold it at bay.
Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock Page 26
