“I remember how empty it felt. As if I were … between universes.”
“You probably were,” Miranda said. “But the Complex intersects several universes—subspace domains large and small, some with more than three spatial dimensions, some with different physical laws from our own.”
Kirk could believe that. At one point, they passed through a blindingly bright universe where space itself seemed dense and almost fluid. At another, they sped briefly through a network of wispy strands of energy resembling the roots of a fungus. One spatial domain looked fairly normal at first glance, but the perspective of the planet they flew past shifted strangely, as if its surface and clouds were flowing through themselves and cycling out the other side. “Fascinating,” Spock said. “A five-dimensional hypersphere.”
Kirk stared. “You’re sure it’s not four?”
Spock gave him a patient look. “There are no stable orbital configurations for a planet in four-dimensional space.”
“Right. Silly me.”
Finally they arrived in a domain that looked far more familiar—like normal space, but with fewer stars. The star they neared was a cool orange dwarf, and sensor readouts showed a Class-M planet in a relatively tight orbit. “That’s our destination,” Jones said. “This domain has physics almost exactly like our universe—it’s just a great deal smaller, with a different dark-energy ratio compensating for the much lower mass. So it can support habitable planets like this one, which we call Ceto.
“Most importantly, it has a high enough psionic particle density to sustain Spectres quite comfortably, making it easier for them to exist and wield their powers outside of corporeal hosts.”
“This is where the Aenar now reside?” Spock asked.
“That’s right. And where the New Humans can take up residence, safe from the Naazh. It’s more than big enough for both groups. All three, really.” She sighed. “I’m happy to stay bonded with my Spectre, but some of the others haven’t been thrilled to learn the truth—including your former navigator, DiFalco.” Kirk nodded. Miranda had already informed him that DiFalco was assisting the Reliant, while the other New Human survivors from the Enterprise, Jade Dinh and Daniel Abioye, were helping to guide other ships in the convoy toward Medusan space. The New Humans the Potemkin had brought from Aldebaran III had already been ferried across dimensions by the Medusans and were below on the planet, and the others would begin to arrive within the day.
“So once they’re safely settled on Ceto, the Spectres will no longer have to hide within humanoid hosts. They won’t have to stay joined if they or their hosts don’t want it. Or they can join only part of the time, if they prefer. But from now on, it will be a free choice for both Spectre and host.”
“I’d like to see the planet for myself,” Kirk said. “Talk to the Aenar who are here—and to the Spectres, if I can.”
Kollos’s mischievous smile came onto Miranda’s face. “Still don’t quite trust us, Captain?”
“I have an obligation to make sure, Ambassador. I’m responsible for the New Humans’ safety, so I have to exercise due diligence.”
“Of course,” Kollos/Jones said, taking no offense. “You and your officers are more than welcome on the planet.” Their smile widened. “We so rarely have guests from your neck of the woods.”
Ceto
The Aenar and New Human settlements were in a beautiful part of Ceto, a temperate coastal area filled with pristine forests of slender, towering trees bracketed by low, rolling mountains on one side and a picturesque coastal inlet on the other. The forest floor was dotted with whimsical-looking plants—freestanding purple growths that spiraled in on themselves, large flowers that looked like pumpkin-headed dandelions, pitcher plants with bioluminescent tendrils dangling from them. Around the trunks of the trees grew lush vines from which dangled fruits that looked like red onions but smelled far sweeter. The gravity was a shade lower than Earth’s, making Kirk feel light on his feet as Miranda Jones and Kollos led him, Spock, and McCoy to visit the settlement being constructed for the New Humans.
When they arrived in the broad, gently sloping river valley where the town was being constructed, they saw a number of Aenar there—a group of about a half dozen, holding out their hands and materializing a moderate-sized single-story dwelling on the lot where their silvery eyes were directed.
“When we brought in the first group of Aenar, the ones from the ships we rescued,” Jones said, “they initially built their dwellings in a cave nearby, one we helped them to enlarge to approximate their original compound. But over the past year, as they’ve gotten used to the fact that they’re safe here, they’ve ventured farther out into the world. They don’t need the sunlight to see by any more than I do, but we enjoy the warmth of it on our skin, and the touch of a cool breeze. We enjoy the chance to exercise, to explore … to commune with the animals of this world.”
The Aenar dwellings they walked past were interestingly different from the ones in the Aenar compound on Andoria. Those structures had been designed and built by Andorians with the needs of sighted beings in mind, with windows and interior lighting. The dwellings here were different; instead of windows, they had thin walls made of something like rice paper and wide openings covered in curtains, presumably to let sounds and scents in from outside. Seeing this made Kirk realize that the building under psionic construction had been of a more familiar, human-friendly design, presumably meant for the incoming New Humans.
Another trio of Aenar were walking slowly past now, reaching out before themselves and creating a paved path to the riverbank as they advanced. Kirk stared. He had faced several beings with transmutation powers of this magnitude before, but he had rarely seen them use those abilities for anything so mundane and functional.
“It’s surprisingly low-key,” McCoy said, echoing Kirk’s thoughts. “With abilities like you people have, I’d expect to see diamond waterfalls and castles in the sky.”
Jones chuckled. “Despite appearances, what the Spectres can do isn’t magic, Doctor. Even in this domain with its rich psionic fields, exertions like these take a great deal of energy.”
McCoy stared. “I thought you said these Aenar were melded with Medusans, like you are. That they’re protected from the burnout effect from an active Spectre.”
“Oh, they are, Doctor. But even incorporeal beings can wear themselves out by working too hard. As much as the Spectres here enjoy the chance to wake up and use their abilities after centuries of dormancy, they still need to pace themselves.”
“I find it interesting,” Spock said, “that your own Spectre persona never seems to speak through you as Kollos does.”
She shrugged. “As I said before, Spock, my Spectre and I have always been one. Even when it was dormant, I felt its presence as a part of my own identity, without realizing it was something separate. It’s already part of who I am, so there is no difference.” She looked around. “Most of the Aenar I’ve talked to feel the same. Their telepathy has been part of their nature throughout their lives, throughout most of their recorded history. It’s part of who they are. So they have no wish to be separated from their Spectres.”
“And the humans?” McCoy challenged. “You said they’d be free to separate if they wanted.”
“And so they are,” she replied firmly. “We’re taking you to see them now.”
She led them to a fair-sized building that was marked as a medical clinic. “Why are they here?” McCoy demanded.
“Just a precaution,” Jones assured him. Her expression grew abashed. “I may have glossed over the difficulty of my own experience with my Spectre’s awakening. Even though Kollos prepared me—even though I was already comfortable with the idea of sharing my consciousness with another—it was a shock to discover that something I thought was a part of myself had been an outsider my whole life. Imagine if your left hand suddenly started speaking to you and acting on its own. It would not be an effortless adjustment.”
She led the group in through the
clinic doors, with Kollos’s habitat taking up the rear. Inside, Kirk noted Arsène Xiang conversing with the leader of the Aldebaran New Humans. Xiang looked almost completely recovered from his brutal stabbing in the Enterprise cargo bay less than thirty-six hours before—more a testament to his Spectre’s telekinetic healing abilities than McCoy’s skills. Chief Onami was nearby, speaking calmingly to several members of their group, evidently a pair of mothers and their preadolescent son. It seemed that being among the New Humans had benefitted Onami, Kirk thought, even though her own esper rating had apparently been a false positive.
“At first, I felt angry,” Jones went on. “Violated. Against Kollos’s advice, I forced the Spectre from my mind and body—and I passed out from the strain, much like T’Nalae did.” She paused. “When I awoke, I thought I’d feel free, but instead I felt incomplete, like less than my full self. I resisted for a day or so—you know how stubborn I am—but finally I realized I couldn’t be myself without the Spectre part of me.” She went on with irony. “The hard part then was convincing the Spectre. I’d hurt it by forcing it out. It hadn’t been on its own for more than two centuries, and even with the Medusans there to give it comfort, it was afraid and confused. Just as much as I was.
“We worked it out, of course. We merged again and became complete—more complete than before, since now my Spectre half was awake and known to me.”
Xiang came over, still moving slowly and wincing a bit from his healing injury, and put an avuncular arm around Jones’s shoulders. His eyes gleamed in more ways than one. “I’m grateful to Miranda for introducing me to my Spectre as Kollos did for her.”
“Arsène was the strongest telepath I met on Earth,” Jones said, “which suggested a strong affinity with his Spectre, even without conscious knowledge of its existence. Unlike me, Arsène embraced his passenger without protest. But then, he’s far kinder than I’ve ever been.”
Xiang chuckled. “Kindness had nothing to do with it. I retired from Starfleet over fifteen years ago, Admiral, and nothing in my life since then has offered the same opportunity for discovery and wonder—until my esper abilities started to grow a few years ago. Meeting my Spectre was like making first contact inside my own skull.” He beamed, his smile brighter than his silver eyes. “We explore the new and unknown because we hope it will change us for the better. For me, that’s finally happened. It’s been a delight to rediscover myself—and my new best friend,” he finished, tapping his head.
Jones and Xiang led them into a ward where Kirk saw several humans, no doubt from the Aldebaran refugee group delivered by the Potemkin. They were reclined on diagnostic couches and tended to by bipeds of an unfamiliar species, ursine and gold-skinned with red-slitted visors that seemed permanently affixed to their skulls.
“Of course, not everyone handles it as well as Arsène,” Jones went on. “So we’ve worked out a more careful process for introducing hosts to the Spectres within them, and guiding them through the discussion of whether to remain joined. The medical precautions are part of it, but they’re rarely needed anymore.”
She placed a hand on the furry shoulder of one of the visored ursines, who looked at the new arrivals and nodded gravely before returning his focus to his patient. “These are the Kinaku. They’re natural telepaths who form corporate intelligences with Medusans, as I have with Kollos. They’re how the Medusans interact with the humanoids on Ceto and elsewhere, to protect them from the sight of the Medusans’ natural forms.”
“Interesting,” Spock said. “Why do the Medusans not employ them as diplomatic liaisons with the Federation, then?”
The Kinaku looked up again. “We’re very shy.”
Xiang chuckled. “The Spectres and their hosts aren’t the first telepathic species the Medusans have given refuge to, Admiral. The Kinaku were almost exterminated by the empire that conquered their world over a millennium ago, in a part of the outer Alpha Quadrant we haven’t reached yet. So they’re content to live in the Complex’s pocket domains.”
“Pardon me,” the visored ursine went on. “We are ready to separate.”
McCoy peered at the delicate-featured, black-haired young woman on the couch, who seemed to be in a semiconscious or meditative state. Kirk noted that her chart was labeled WU, MEIHUA. “She’s decided she doesn’t want her Spectre?”
“It is mutual. Excuse us.”
The observers stepped back and watched as the Kinaku placed his bulky hand on Wu’s forehead and concentrated. Kirk initially feared the separation would be as convulsive as it had been with T’Nalae, but instead it proceeded far more gently, presumably because it was consensual. Wu’s diminutive frame moved only slightly, stiffening, and her breathing intensified. Her eyes shot open, gleaming silver, and then a similar shimmer formed around her head and spread over her body, rising up and outward from her. The sparkling aura was more colorful than her eyes’ glow, like an aurora, as if the psionic energy being released were exciting the molecules in the air to iridesce.
Finally the glow lifted off Wu and moved to hover in the air. At the same time, the young woman relaxed and let out a long, slow sigh. Her now-dark eyes widened and a mix of emotions played across her face—confusion, discovery, fear, relief, sadness. Her eyes looked around and locked on Kirk, probing for a moment. “I can’t sense your thoughts,” she said. “It’s just mine again.” She smiled in relief, but at the same time, a tear trickled down her cheek.
The Kinaku physician stood. “Let her rest now.”
He started to lead them away, but Jones reached out to the auroral glow in the air. “These gentlemen would like to speak with you, if you’re up to it,” she said to the disembodied Spectre in a soft, reassuring tone. “Follow us, please.”
“Don’t worry,” Xiang added. “You’ll soon get the hang of moving on your own again.” He grunted and put a hand on his abdomen. “Not unlike me.”
The two powerful Spectre hosts led them out into the rear courtyard of the clinic, where several humans sat or strolled in the gentle orange sunlight, some with Aenar or Kinaku attendants. They found a quiet spot for their conversation and waited for the freed Spectre to join them. After a moment, the shimmer of light emerged through the closed door and drew toward them, beginning to take on a semblance of a humanoid form. “It’s a telepathic illusion,” Jones explained. “The easiest way for a disembodied Spectre to speak to us. It may take her a while to get the hang of it, though.”
Kirk soon understood her choice of pronoun, for the form the Spectre was trying to project was a simulacrum of Meihua Wu, made of translucent silver-white light with wisps of auroral color clothing it. The image flickered and multiplied as it moved, as if jumping quickly back and forth between overlapping moments and alternatives. At one point, it broke apart and shifted vertically, momentarily settling into a bizarre configuration with its upper torso gliding along the ground at waist level while its legs walked on air above its head. “Be patient,” a replica of Wu’s voice echoed in Kirk’s head. “Spatiotemporal (be) geometry (patient) is challenging (be patient).”
The image’s two halves converged and passed through each other, finally settling into a reasonably normal image of Wu, albeit translucent with silver-white hair and still with a degree of chronological stutter. She looked like a woman made of moonlight, reflected in a rippling pool. “I hope you (an agreeable form) you will find this (engage with) an agreeable form (this) to engage with.”
“Indeed,” Kirk said to the Spectre’s angelic countenance. “Quite a beautiful form, in fact.” Jones threw him a look—Really? He cleared his throat. “But that’s not important. What matters to us is the chance to communicate directly with a Spectre—to confront you about how you’ve … involved yourselves with humans all this time.”
“You mean (used) how we have used humans, Admiral Kirk (humans),” the Spectre said, her image and voice overlapping themselves slightly less now. “You are entitled to say so. It was not a course we took without argument (we took) among ourselves
. What began as a temporary measure in desperation (trap) became an accustomed habit (desperation), a trap for ourselves.
“Our wise elders argue that the brutality of the Naazh has proven the need (brutality) for our concealment,” the Spectre went on. “But our lives of enforced passivity were hardly better than extinction. And we have now cost the lives (selfish) of many of our hosts through our selfish presence. I, for one, am glad I no longer endanger Meihua (no longer).”
“What was she to you?” McCoy challenged. “What are we to your people? Disguises that you wear? Pets? It’s hard to call it a partnership when one partner knows nothing about it.”
“Do you expect me to disagree, Doctor McCoy? But Meihua was no pet. She was (protector) my home, my protector. Through her, I experienced singing. Through her mother, Jasmine, I knew the life of a police detective. Through her grandmother, Mana, I felt what it was like to master cuisine and run a successful restaurant. I (shared in) could not live for myself, so I shared in their lives. It was hard to be passive through all of it (their lives)—to experience it as a living dream. But their joys and successes brought compensation.”
“So glad you found us entertaining.”
The gleaming face grew wistful. “We saw your hardships too. We saw you struggle with hatred, violence, near-annihilation (devastated us). At times, it devastated us not to intervene. But we could not, for bringing you to the Lords’ attention would have been far worse (could not).
“The Aenar were good shelter—quiet, hidden, barely noticed. Living in humans was riskier. Many of us were killed in your wars; even awakening enough to protect our hosts risked drawing the Lords’ attention (were killed). When we could stir enough to communicate, we debated (other hosts) whether we should find other hosts, a safer haven. But we still sensed potential in you. More of you fought to protect than to destroy (potential).” The image smiled. “And so you saved yourselves, and us. The good in you prevailed, and you ascended to the stars and built a union based on peace and partnership. And we felt safer (peace and) than we had since the Lords first took power in our domain.”
The Higher Frontier Page 26
