Encounter at Farpoint

by David Gerrold

  Riker stifled a smile. “Don’t stop. Your comments are valuable . . . and welcome.”

  They moved forward carefully, noting the sameness of the construction, the apparently endless tunnel. There were some branches off in other directions, but at Riker’s instruction, Tasha kept bearing right.

  “These corridors don’t seem to lead anywhere—they just go on,” Riker observed. “How do we get to other levels?”

  “Speculation,” Data said. “The aliens are able to pass through walls, perhaps through dimensions.”

  Tasha glanced at him with a frown. “Then why build walls at all?” she asked, always practical. Data nodded thoughtfully; she had made a nice point. Abruptly Riker’s communicator sounded, and Picard’s crisp voice crackled in transmission.

  “Picard to Riker. Report.”

  “Riker here. This is turning out to be a very long tunnel or corridor that we’ve beamed into, sir. No ship’s crew in sight; no sign of mechanisms or circuitry . . .”

  “Keep reporting in, Commander. Picard out.”

  Riker glanced around at the others. “Our captain seems a little impatient.”

  “Oh, no sir,” Data said brightly. “He just dislikes breaking in new officers.”

  “Thank you for telling me that, Data.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Data would have gone on, at length, if Troi hadn’t suddenly interrupted sharply. “Groppler Zorn, sir . . . in great fear.” She pointed down the tunnel toward an intersection. “Just ahead.” They hurried forward, Troi in the lead. She waved a hand at Riker to indicate something else. He stopped beside her as she paused to analyze it. “There’s a different feeling to the corridor here, sir. Very different—”

  Zorn’s voice split the air, quivering with pain. “No, please! No more!”

  The team ran around the curved wall of the intersection and skidded to a halt, staring ahead. Zorn was held suspended off the deck in the center of a cylindrical forcefield. They could see its edges glittering softly, outlining it. The forcefield sparkled, and they heard an ominous click. Zorn writhed and twitched, shrieking in pain.

  “No! Please! No more! Please, no more!”

  Riker and Tasha moved toward him and were brought up sharply by the leading edge of the forcefield. “Data. Check the extent of the forcefield.” Data nodded, but he had begun scanning with his tricorder the moment they had seen the barrier. Zorn moaned in pain again, and Riker turned his attention to the unfortunate Bandi administrator. “Zorn. Can you hear me?”

  Zorn slowly managed to lift his head and look toward them. Riker was shocked by the alien’s pain-filled face, his features twisted into a grimace of intense agony. “Please. I can’t talk to it. Make it stop the pain. Please . . .”

  “Has the alien communicated—?” Troi broke off, spinning to face Riker as realization shot through her mind. “That’s it, sir! It’s just one alien I’m sensing here.”

  Zorn groaned again and twitched as something in the forcefield shot agony through his bones. “Please! I don’t understand what it wants.”

  Troi glanced at Riker and shook her head. “Not true. He does know—and he’s afraid.”

  Data completed his scan of the forcefield and moved to hold out the tricorder for Riker to see. “The forcefield is one meter in diameter, but it goes from ceiling to floor. I cannot pinpoint a source. But see this, sir—” He pointed to a specific reading on the tricorder, and Riker’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. Riker pulled his phaser from its place and readjusted the setting.

  “Heavy stun,” he ordered. “Concentrate your fire on mine.” He and Data raised the weapons and aimed directly at Zorn.

  “No, no! Please don’t!” Zorn screamed.

  The phaser fire hit the forcefield, and a brilliantly colored glow spread over the entire face of it. Suddenly, it winked out, and Zorn’s body flopped to the floor free of restraint. Tasha and Data ran forward to help him. Riker turned away to activate his communicator. “Riker to Enterprise.”

  Troi felt the now-familiar touch of the alien mind in her own, and it troubled her. There was still the anger, but she sensed it was directed almost solely at Zorn. And there was questioning . . . Suddenly, Troi jerked alert. A strange, writhing tendril of plasma had extended itself from the wall and was swaying toward Riker. Imzadi! her mind screamed.

  Other tendrils were reaching out from the walls toward Data and Tasha as they crouched over Zorn’s body. Troi was grabbed from behind, a slim tentacle whipping around her waist and holding her in place. Riker was still calling into the communicator, “Enterprise, come in! Beam us—” Another tentacle slipped around his neck, beginning to throttle him.

  On the Enterprise, Picard could hear the muffled sound of Riker’s voice as it came over the communicator. He leaned toward his own communications panel anxiously and snapped, “Transporter Chief, yank them back! Now!”

  Worf, manning the Ops station, suddenly turned to Picard, pointing at the viewscreen. “Captain!”

  Picard glanced up and paused, staring at the amazing image now captured on the huge screen. The mighty vessel was beginning to change, its firm, hard edges seeming to melt into something softer, something unexplainable. “What in heaven . . . ?”

  A blinding flash of light flooded the bridge, announcing Q’s return. This time, the alien wore the uniform of a Starfleet captain, complete to the four gold disks of rank. Picard glowered, resenting Q’s elevation to his own command level.

  “Your time is up, Captain,”Q intoned.

  Picard ignored him and snapped into his command panel, “Transporter Chief, do you have their coordinates?” He waited a second, expecting the quick response. When it didn’t come, he leaned forward anxiously. “Transporter Chief!”

  Q casually stepped to the side of the command chair, smiling pleasantly. “He can’t hear you, Captain.”

  Picard touched his own insignia communicator to activate it. “Transporter Chief, come in!” Dead air. Q’s smile widened. Picard turned to him angrily. “Q, I have people . . . in trouble over there . . . !”

  Q lowered himself into the command chair, lazing in it with his booted feet outstretched. Picard held up a hand as other bridge personnel started forward angrily. “Everyone, at ease! That’s an order.” The others backed off, still angry, but obeying. Picard hated having to appeal to the alien, but he had to do something about the away team. “My people are in trouble, Q. Let me help them.” He paused, took the final plunge. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

  The alien gave him a strangely sweet smile and dropped his hand downward, his fingers flicking outward in a fan. Almost instantly, there was a peculiar sound that Picard could not identify. It was vaguely like a transporter beam, but not one of Starfleet’s. An odd shimmering appeared in the air between the command chair and the forward stations. It resolved itself into five distinct shapes and, to Picard’s relief, finally materialized as Riker, Data, Troi, Tasha, and Zorn—all whole and healthy.

  “You’ll do whatever I say?”Q asked smoothly.

  Picard hesitated and finally nodded. He was a man of his word; he had given it. He wouldn’t take it back, even if what the alien wanted was something Picard didn’t want to give—and he had a feeling that would be exactly what Q wanted. “It seems I did make that bargain if you would return the team safely.”

  “The agreement isn’t valid, then, sir,” Troi said. “It wasn’t Q who saved us.”

  Picard shot a glance at her, but Q was on his feet, interjecting quickly. “Save yourselves!” He pointed at the viewer. “It may attack you now.”

  The captain turned toward the main viewscreen and realized that the mystery vessel, in its changed form, was drifting closer to the Enterprise. “What is that thing?”

  “That’s what sent us back, Captain,” Riker said.

  “How do you know that?”

  Troi moved forward again, earnestly. “I can feel it. It is not merely a vessel, sir. Somehow it is alive.”

  “She li
es!”Q shouted. “Destroy it while you can.” He rushed toward Tasha, standing at the Weapons and Tactical Station. “Make phasers and photon torpedoes ready!”

  “No! Do nothing he demands,” Picard ordered. He turned to Q angrily. “You seem to have the idea that wearing that uniform gives you the right to give orders to my crew. It doesn’t.”

  Zorn moved forward, weary and still weak from his painful ordeal. “But that thing was killing my people, Captain . . .”

  “True, and the question is why? Was there a reason?”

  Zorn lowered his eyes and shook his head. Q pushed in again, pressing Picard. “It is an unknown, Captain. Isn’t that reason enough?”

  “If you had earned that uniform, you’d know that the unknown is what brings us out here!” Picard snapped.

  Q sniffed and turned away haughtily. “Wasted effort,” he tossed off, “considering the level of your intelligence.”

  Picard sensed the alien backing off. He was not threatening or harrying now, not the bully boy. Q was reduced to throwing verbal barbs. In Picard’s experience, that usually translated into a weakened position. “Let’s test that,” he said pleasantly. He turned to Zorn. “Starting with the tunnels you have under Farpoint, Groppler.”

  “Identical to the ones on that space vessel over there,” Riker put in. “Why was it punishing you, Zorn? Perhaps in return for pain you caused some other life form?”

  Picard pressed in on the Bandi administrator. Zorn flinched away from him, refusing to meet Picard’s eyes. “We did nothing wrong!” he finally snapped. “The creature drifted down outside our city. It was weak . . . starving . . . it had been injured in space. We are not heartless. We tried to help it . . .”

  “Thank you,” Picard interrupted. “That was the missing part. Lieutenant Yar, rig main phaser banks to deliver an energy beam.”

  “Aye, sir.” Tasha was puzzled as to Picard’s intention; but her long slim fingers automatically went to the Weapons and Tactical Station console, calling for the powering up of the energy beam.

  Picard looked back at Zorn. “You say you tried to help it. That wouldn’t have made this creature so angry it’s bent on wiping out every Bandi it can sense.”

  Zorn wriggled uncomfortably. The Bandi had needed the creature so much. It had done all they asked of it, even if it had needed some . . . coercion. “The creature requires energy to live, and we had it in abundance. It can read thought images. It could create anything we could think of . . . but we had to ration its energy to control it . . .”

  Riker sighed. “It had to be conceivable that somewhere in the galaxy there could exist creatures able to convert energy into matter.”

  “And into specific patterns of matter, much as our transporters—and our holodecks—do,” Data added.

  Tasha had been watching the main viewscreen as she focused and refined the energy beam Picard ordered. Now she snapped, “On the viewer, Captain.”

  The vessel had begun to soften its edges further, melting into an amorphous lovely shape shot with soft, pulsing colors. “Zorn, you captured something like that, didn’t you? And used it.”

  “It wanted to do it,” Zorn protested. “To repay our kindness.”

  “You imprisoned it,” Troi said harshly. “For your own ends.”

  “No, we just asked it to build something . . . large.”

  “It created Farpoint Station for you,” Riker said. Then he corrected himself. “No . . . like that ship out there, it is Farpoint Station.”

  On the viewscreen, they could see the vessel creature flowing into a new shape. It extended feathery tendrils as it began to sink downward, toward the planet and the station below.

  “Warn my people, please!” Zorn begged in panic. “They are in danger. Tell them to leave Farpoint Station immediately!”

  Q thrust his way into the debate again. “He’s lied to you, Captain. Shouldn’t you let his people die?”

  “Is that what you, in your advanced civilization, would recommend?” Picard inquired acidly. He didn’t wait for a reply, but turned to Data at Ops. “Transmit this message to the Bandi. ‘Leave Farpoint Station at once, for your own safety.’ Continue transmission whether you get a response or not.”

  “Aye, sir.” The android immediately began tabbing in the commands that would send the continuous message.

  Troi had taken her seat at the left of the captain’s chair and was staring at the viewscreen where the vessel creature still sank ominously toward the planet. “It was a pair of creatures I sensed. One down there in grief and pain and hunger, the other up here, filled with anger and hate . . .”

  “And firing not on the new space station, but on the Bandi and their city.”

  Picard looked at Troi for confirmation of his next statement. “Attacking those who captured its . . . its mate?”

  She swiftly examined the feelings and sensitivities she had received and shook her head. “Not quite the right word, sir.” She slid a glance at Riker. “Perhaps the Betazoid word ‘imzadi’ comes closer.”

  The first officer blushed.

  “Energy beam ready, sir,” Tasha said.

  “Lock it on Farpoint Station, Lieutenant Yar.”

  Q had begun to get annoyed at being ignored. Had these humans forgotten the bargain Picard had made? No one was doing what he wanted. They seemed to have decided he wasn’t important. “I see now this was too simple a puzzle. But generosity has always been my weakness.”

  Picard continued to ignore Q. He nodded to Tasha. “Let it have whatever it can absorb. Energize.”

  Tasha tabbed a quick command into her console and glanced up at the main viewscreen. The huge screen’s point of view shifted as Data operated his panel to follow the track of the thick, pale blue energy beam downward toward Farpoint Station. It struck the middle of the big station and seemed to be absorbed directly into it. Tasha watched her panel intently, caught a signal that brought her alert. “Now getting feedback on the beam, sir.”

  “Discontinue it,” Picard said. “Groppler Zorn, there’ll soon be no Farpoint Station if I’m right about this.”

  “A lucky guess!”Q shot in.

  The others continued to ignore him. Zorn, who had no idea of who the alien was, took the others’ lead and appealed directly to Picard. “Please believe me, Captain, we did not mean to harm the creature. It was starving for energy . . .”

  “A need which you perverted for your own purposes.”

  “But we did feed it!” Zorn wailed, as if that small generosity absolved the crime. They had cared for the creature; if it had died, they would have been bereft. Of course, they might have cared more for the loss of the material possessions they would have lost than they would have for the death of the creature; but they would have mourned the loss.

  “You fed it only enough to keep it alive, to force it to shape itself into the form you needed—”

  “Sir,” Data interjected. He nodded toward the viewscreen as Picard looked around.

  Farpoint Station was shimmering, coalescing, growing soft around the edges. Slowly, it flowed into the shape of a gossamer creature, feathery light as it gracefully rose from its captivity. The vessel creature, larger, but equally beautiful, descended toward its mate.

  “Sir,” Troi breathed, “it’s wonderful! A feeling of joy. And gratitude.”

  The bridge crew, Zorn and Q watched the screen as the two aliens closed, reaching toward each other with glowing, writhing extensions of delicate matter/energy. The tendrils touched and twined sinuously, and then both creatures began to move upward, past the Enterprise in orbit.