Titan, Book Three

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “That would be an energy transfer,” Jaza interpreted. “They’re feeding energy into the embryo…its biosigns are growing stronger, stabilizing.” On the screen, the “mother” jelly, at the center of another column formation, glowed brighter, especially near its core, where a separate light seemed to be growing within it.

  “We share the essence of our lost sibling,” Deanna said, falling into the first person plural once again.

  “Or what’s left of it,” Jaza said. “Most of that energy was used in the conception process.”

  Now the jellies completed their dance, each of them giving the “mother” a final caress. The others continued swirling around while the gravid jelly descended back to the nesting ground. “Permission to launch a probe, sir,” Jaza asked. “Just to get a better look at this.”

  Deanna nodded briefly, indicating that the jellies wouldn’t be offended. “Granted,” Riker said.

  Once the “mother” reached the hydrothermal lakes, the probe allowed them to watch from below and to the side as it reached up into its ventral cavity with all eight tentacles. Gingerly, it extracted the embryo, a glowing pod resembling a mother-of-pearl pumpkin, and lowered it slowly into the lake. Despite the delicacy of the action, it was still over forty meters wide, and the water displacement produced a set of prodigious but gentle waves radiating out across the lake.

  Soon the pod was completely submerged, but Jaza reported its biosigns were still healthy and strong. “It’s extruding eight small anchors into the lakebed,” he said, reading sensor data from the probe. “I suppose those will grow into its geothermal roots. Eventually it’ll grow large enough to breach the surface again.”

  The “mother” creature lingered for a few moments, and then rose up to join the others again. “Do they just leave them there?” Vale asked.

  “They keep watch from orbit,” Deanna told her. “The young are fairly self-sufficient, and there’s little that can hurt them…short of a volcanic eruption, I’d say. And the adult jellies can speak to them telepathically, teach and nurture them that way…so in a sense they’re always together.”

  “Even when this school is away?”

  “They have a very communal sense of parenting. The children belong to them all.”

  Jaza cleared his throat. “So…if they feel the young are safe…would they have any objection to us sending down an away team to study them?”

  Deanna laughed, somewhat breathlessly after the extended wash of emotions she’d endured. “They would have no objections, Najem. But I would if you intend it to be anytime before morning. I’m exhausted.” She looked at the chronometer on her armside console. “And I hadn’t realized how far past end of shift it is.”

  “All right,” Riker said. “Let’s all get some rest, and we’ll arrange a survey in the morning.” He and the others turned over their stations to the gamma-shift personnel who’d been waiting patiently, then made their way to the turbolifts.

  But when Vale tried to get into the lift after Riker and Deanna, the counselor stopped her. “Would you mind?” Vale looked between them, then nodded and stepped back, allowing the doors to close. Deanna sighed heavily and fell against Riker. “Ohh, thank goodness.” She pulled him down to her and kissed him passionately.

  When it finally ended, he grinned. “I thought you were exhausted.”

  “From all the emotions of the mating. Which,” she added, “I really, really need to get out of my system as soon as possible.”

  His grin widened. “Can you hold out until we get to our quarters?”

  “I don’t know.” She had him pushed against the wall now. “Maybe you’d better have us beamed there.”

  Chapter Eight

  Elder Qui’hibra studied the sensation feeds with mixed feelings. The displays projected on the control atrium’s wall showed him the telltale signatures of a successful mating. On the one hand, he was glad the mating had gone well; he hoped the embryo would grow into a large, powerful skymount which would serve the Pa’haquel in generations to come. But it was frustrating that the energy fueling the mating had come from a kill that should have been serving his clan in the here and now. Those fools in their little metal toy of a starship had proven more of a nuisance than he’d expected, and would need to be taught the error of their ways soon, one way or another, lest they bring more disruption to the balance.

  Next to him, Qui’chiri shivered. Qui’hibra allowed himself a private moment of amusement at his daughter’s melodramatic gesture. He knew that by now her hide had grown as tough as his; she’d inherited that from him, along with her mother’s beauty and genius for fleet management. She was simply offering a critique of his tactic: hiding the fleet in the breeding system’s outer cometary belt, one skymount at each of the most likely departure vectors, their shells camouflaged as ice and with internal heat reduced to minimum. It was not a particularly comfortable tactic, and he had overheard some griping, mainly among the young Pa’haquel males and the Vomnin and Shizadam crew members. (The Rianconi never complained about anything, though Qui’hibra suspected the cold was most troubling to their dainty, half-bare bodies. Conversely, the Fethetrit were prone to complain about everything, but their thick red fur gave them an edge here.) But if Qui’chiri’s only concern were her own comfort, she would not have wasted his time or her own with such weakness.

  As he expected, a moment later she followed the gesture with words. “I still question the wisdom of this, Father,” she said. “To attack them so close to a breeding world…”

  “So long as we do not make a pattern of it, the risk is manageable,” he replied. “And you know what is at stake, probably better than I. We lost a mighty mount to the cloud-shimmers, and several brave families. Our numbers are even more badly depleted than before. We must replenish them in time for the Great Hounding.”

  She bowed her head briefly at the reminder, but then spoke impatiently. “You know that we will never get there in time, no matter how hard you wish it.”

  “True.” It was hard for him to admit, but the numbers were undeniable. “But such a massive Hounding will result in many losses among the other fleet-clans. I want us strong enough to fill the void, so the balance may be kept. Not to mention the balance within our own fleet,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, yes, we still have too many fertile females and unwed males to pair off, and they need somewhere to go.” She parroted the familiar argument in singsong tones. Neither of them mentioned the unthinkable: lose too many more skymounts and they would have to be absorbed into another fleet, shamed and subordinate. The shame of missing the Great Hounding would make it even worse. “Spirit deliver us from an excess of young males impatient to start their own families. The regular number is bad enough.” Qui’hibra let out a tiny laugh, one that probably only Qui’chiri knew him well enough to recognize as such. That youthful ambition had served him well, had let him win a prime mate and build this proud fleet-clan; but he was glad to have outgrown that contentious phase. He too had needed to wait for his chance to split off from his birth-skymount and start a subclan of his own, and his impatience had made him a major discipline problem for the elder of his small, struggling fleet.

  “But at least that is a risk we can cope with,” Qui’chiri went on. “If we were to drive the skymounts from a breeding world this fine, it could cause a major population drop for generations to come.”

  “But since it is such a fine world, they would not abandon it easily. And we will not attack too close to the system. When a departing school is spotted, we will trail it for as long as we can.”

  “At the risk of losing it.”

  “Another manageable risk.”

  “Like allowing that Titan ship to continue meddling?”

  “Others have meddled in the Hunt before. The Hunt continues. The balance is kept.”

  “These seem to have a closer rapport with the skymounts than most. They concern me.”

  “Their intentions are good, if arrogant and ignorant. I do not wis
h them harm if I can avoid it.”

  “Nice to say in theory. I am a female, I have no time for abstractions. And as you say, we have little margin for error, this close to a Hounding. I say kill them mercifully quick, commend their souls to the Spirit, and move on to the next crisis.” That was Qui’chiri—reliably pragmatic to the end, an ideal female. It was what he cherished about her. When his last wife—a competent matriarch, but nowhere near the level of his first, Qui’chiri’s mother—had died, Qui’chiri, as the most senior surviving female of the Qui’ha line, had been forced into the role of clan matriarch well before her time, but had borne the responsibility magnificently. If only he had the luxury, he would dote over her shamelessly and devote himself to singing her praises. Instead, most of their conversations were about the business of the clan and the hunt. But that was the language they both spoke best, so it was better that way.

  “It is an option,” Qui’hibra told her. “But the Hunt is for their good as well, even if they do not accept it.”

  “And if they disrupt the balance and the chaos takes hold, they will die just the same, and many others with them. Better they die for the right reasons.”

  “Better still if we can make them see wisdom. Then they could prove an ally.”

  “All right,” Qui’chiri said. “That is practical, I can support it. But the moment it becomes a choice between killing them and losing another skymount—”

  “They die, of course.”

  “Of course.” She gave his neck feathers a quick, affectionate preening. “I had no doubt. Good to have it said, though.”

  Just then, the Shizadam crew member monitoring communications turned to him. “Elder, we have a hue and cry from Skymount Tir’Shi. A school is nearing the system on a vector within their field.”

  “Inbound, you say? Not outbound?” he asked.

  “Verified. A school of thirteen members, inbound at sublight.” Qui’hibra was irrationally disappointed. He’d been hoping for a rematch with the school they had fought before. Of course it was natural to expect that school to remain in-system for a time, recharging its energies and ensuring that its offspring settled in well. Still, that school owed him blood, and he wouldn’t feel the balance had been truly restored until he could claim it.

  But the fleet needed new mounts now, regardless of their pedigree. “Very well,” he said aloud. “Continue tracking, then follow them at the edge of sensation range. Once a comfortable distance has been gained, the rest of the fleet will warp to meet you and we will attack.”

  “So…why do you hate Cadet Torvig?”

  Ranul Keru glared at the tall, atypically slim Tellarite across from him. For the umpteenth time, he cautioned himself not to rise to the bait. “I don’t hate him,” he replied in a level tone.

  “Liar. How else do you explain these absurdly harsh discipline recommendations you made, hmm? Confinement to quarters? Revoking of security clearances? Possible transfer? What do you think this is, the Spanish Inquisition?” Counselor Pral glasch Haaj didn’t conduct his sessions like any other therapist Keru had ever known. One would think that the argumentative approach favored by Tellarites would serve to put patients on the defensive, making it harder for them to trust their counselor and open up about their problems. But Haaj had a way of making it work—of exposing people’s mind games and preconceptions, deflating their illusions, and maneuvering them into self-contradictions that forced them to question their assumptions. And he did it without the noisy bluster of the stereotypical Tellarite, though with just as much arrogance. Rather than shouting in anger, he delivered his barbs with withering dryness in a smooth, cultured tenor voice.

  “What he did was serious,” Keru countered. “And he doesn’t seem to care that it was wrong.”

  “Wrong? How? No harm would’ve come of it.”

  “That’s not the point. It was incredibly thoughtless of him to attempt to infest people with, with nanoprobes without considering their reactions.”

  “Oho. Nanoprobes, is it? Naa-no-prrobes,” Haaj said, mocking Keru’s weighty delivery. “Not simply nanites, which everyone knows have been routinely used in medicine and research practically since the Dark Ages. No, these were naa-no-prrobes. I can practically hear the italics. Tell me, Mr. Keru, what exactly was it about these microscopic monstrosities of Mr. Torvig’s that warranted such melodrama?”

  Keru glared at him. “You think this is about him being a cyborg? That I’m treating him unfairly because he reminds me of the Borg? Counselor, I’m not a bigot.”

  “Well, you’re certainly not a smallot.” Haaj looked over his massive frame. “Good grief, I’m amazed you were never joined. A whole family of symbionts could’ve set up house in there with room for guests. I’m sorry, that was small of me. Well, proportionately. Now where were we?”

  “You were calling me a bigot.”

  “Excuse me, who called you that? I’m sure the word never crossed my lips. But since you bring it up…”

  Keru sighed. “All right, I admit, the sight of Torvig makes me uncomfortable. Frankly it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and he’s well aware of it. Yet he deliberately chose to take an action that would provoke that very unease.”

  “Ohh, I see. Well, we can’t have that. Challenging people’s prejudices? That way lies madness, surely. Better to conform, to downplay your uniqueness and just try to fit in. After all, that’s how the Trill did it up until a decade or so ago, right? And we all know how well that worked out for you lot.”

  That struck a nerve. For centuries, the joined Trill had kept the existence of their symbionts a secret from the rest of the galaxy, afraid that other humanoids would see them as parasites holding their humanoid hosts in thrall, or as inferior creatures to be exploited or dissected. The truth had come out about a dozen years ago, and had been better accepted than the Trill had feared. But keeping secrets was a longtime habit of the joined Trill leadership, stretching back to an ancient and horrible act of genocide thousands of years in the past, one which the Trill elites had tried to erase entirely from their history out of the shame they felt at the act. More recently, they had concealed the fact that half the humanoid population was fit for joining rather than a tiny fraction, for fear that the many would covet the symbionts of the few, steal and trade them as commodities, and hate and persecute their possessors. Three years ago, the weight of all the secrets had reached the breaking point, culminating in a violent uprising by a radical unjoined faction, the exposure of all those buried secrets, and the murder of the majority of the symbionts. So Keru had to concede that trying to conceal one’s true nature for fear of how others would respond was not a very healthy thing to do.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s not what I meant to say. What I meant was, there are better ways to assert your individuality than deliberately provoking others. Maybe that kind of, I don’t know, activism has its place, but not on a Starfleet vessel. I can’t sanction deliberately disruptive behavior no matter what its motives. And that’s still true regardless of my Borg issues. I admit I don’t exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings about cyborgs, but I’m not letting that affect my work. You should know that. I’ve dealt with those issues.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  Haaj shook his head. “Haven’t.”

  “Look, we’ve been talking about it for the past few weeks!”

  “Talking about what?”

  “About…about Oghen. About T’Lirin.”

  “T’Lirin was a Borg? Imagine my surprise.”

  “No, no!” He reined in his frustration. “About having to leave her behind. Having to admit that, that sometimes you have to make that choice. Like Worf did with Sean.” For years, Keru had resented the Klingon for what he’d done, for killing Keru’s lifemate rather than trying to save him from Borg assimilation, as Picard had been saved, as Tuvok’s former shipmate Annika Hansen had been. The events during the evacuation of Oghen, in which Keru had been forced to leave Lieutenant T�
�Lirin to die in order to save the rest of his team and a number of refugees, had forced him to reconsider those beliefs, and to reevaluate his bitterness toward Worf.

  At first, he had been reluctant to seek help in this from Titan’s counseling staff. He had chosen instead to talk it out with his best friend, Alyssa Ogawa. But Alyssa was a medic, and had insisted that she wouldn’t serve him as well as another professional, one trained for such services. “If your leg is broken, you don’t go to your friend, you go to a doctor,” she’d told him. “This is no different. The mind needs maintenance and care just like any other part of the body, and if you’re smart, you’ll get it from someone who’s qualified to provide it. The best way I can help you, Ranul, is by sending you to them.” She had convinced him, but he hadn’t been sure which counselor to talk to. Deanna Troi, having been Worf’s former lover, was too close to the issue. And Keru had trouble taking the toylike Huilan seriously. He realized that was a prejudice in itself, a hangup he needed to overcome, but dealing with that could get in the way of his other problem. So he’d chosen Haaj. After the first session, he’d wondered if he’d made a mistake; yet he’d kept coming back regardless. There was something draining yet refreshing about his contentious sessions with Haaj, not unlike sparring in the gym.

  “So you’ve dealt with that, have you?” Haaj said now, in his usual skeptical tone.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “You’re all right with having to leave someone behind to die.”

  “If I have to, yes.”

  “And when do you have to?”

  “When it’s for the greater good. When it has to be done to save more lives.”

  “Ahh, I see. So you’ll sacrifice the individual for the good of the whole.”

  “If necessary.”

  “Oh, so that’s what you mean by dealing with your Borg issues! You’ve decided that the individual really is irrelevant after all, that only the collective matters. Well done, lad, you’ve convinced me. Where do we sign up to be assimilated?”