[20] Leah stepped off the transporter platform, feeling a bounce in her step from the decrease in gravity. Mikel stumbled off the platform and promptly dropped all of their packages. Before Leah could help him, doors opened at the end of the bay, and Ellen Henricksen rushed toward them, bounding in the low gravity like an ostrich.
Ellen waved a padd over her head. “I’ve got the site permissions, environmental studies, and waivers right here!”
“Thanks,” said Leah, taking the handheld device from her. She glanced guiltily at Mikel, who was chasing a rolling melon across the cargo bay. “Ellen, could you please round up the food for us and start dinner, as best you can.”
Ellen flapped her long arms helplessly. “I guess so.” She was a good kid, but just a kid, and this was her first real job since leaving the Daystrom Institute. Leah was often inclined to cut fellow Daystrom graduates more slack than the others. Ellen bounced over to the transporter console and busied herself checking coordinates.
Mikel stood up, rubbing his back. “Something tells me that tonight will be another meal from the replicator.”
“Not if I can help it,” vowed Leah. “Did we do the maintenance on the shuttlecraft?”
“Did the maintenance,” answered Mikel, “and we’re going to need it tomorrow.”
“Let’s settle this bit with the Civil Guard once and for all.” Leah Brahms climbed back onto the transporter, her jaw set resolutely. She looked expectantly at Mikel, who wasn’t moving quickly enough.
With a shrug, he dutifully followed. “They probably resent the fact that we’re working on a holiday.”
Leah shook the padd at him. “These people know they have no authority, they just want to meet the ones in charge. If they had left us alone, the test would be done already.”
“The more tests, the better,” said Mikel, snidely repeating a familiar litany. “We’ll set them straight. Energize, Miss Henricksen.”
[21] “Yes, Doctor.” The young woman plied the controls with authority, and Leah again felt the tingle of the transporter beam. A moment later, she and her husband materialized in a meadow on the outskirts of the capitol city. A muddy stream ran through the middle of the field, and tiny yellow flowers sprinkled its banks. The city and its monorails were nestled in the foothills beyond, looking like strands of pearls strewn among green velvet. On the jagged horizon rose the Tinkraw Mountains—shrouded, snow-dusted peaks which guarded the glistening city.
Sixteen tall coral pillars stood in the center of the meadow, forming a circle around a clearing. The pillars had been built to resemble the fertility temples of the Deltans, so as not to disrupt the natural beauty of the meadow. But this was no temple—it was a monitoring station. The pillars housed test equipment, scanners, monitors, force-field generators, and a particle accelerator. What had once been a remote area was getting more popular all the time, with a couple dozen people in attendance.
In the center of the pillars stood what appeared to be a white sculpture representing a humanoid. This stoic figure was the center of attention, with people milling around it. As Leah and Mikel strode toward the gathering, she could see that the bulky radiation suit was empty. Standing beside it was a young Deltan woman wearing an oversized robe and a chagrined expression.
Their assistants, Paldor and Gershon, were arguing vociferously with about twenty members of the Civil Guard, as denoted by their distinctive purple sashes. On a peaceful planet with no standing police or army, the Civil Guard was a volunteer organization that enforced laws. Sometimes they couldn’t resist meddling.
At their approach, the warring parties broke off from each other and charged the new arrivals, waving their hands. Leah started to say something, but Mikel’s voice boomed over her head. “I’ll thank you to stop harassing my technicians! We’ve got all of our permissions, and this site has been cleared for these tests. Unless you’re [22] standing right on top of the emitter, it won’t be any more dangerous than getting an X ray!”
“That’s what I’ve been telling him!” bawled Paldor, a chubby Tellarite with a piglike snout, bristly orange beard, and shock of orange hair.
A tall, plumed Camorite approached Mikel, looking very grave. He was also armed with a padd full of data, so Leah handed her padd to Mikel. The Camorite spoke with authority. “According to common ordinance six-three-seven-point-nine, this facility is not to be used for class-three experiments on an official holiday when local citizens are endangered by their presence in the area.”
Mikel turned to Leah and grinned triumphantly. “You see, it was because of working on a holiday.” His expression grew somber as he turned back to the Civil Guard. “Okay, then no locals will be endangered, because we’ll keep them away. We’d like to start by keeping you away, so please leave.”
The Camorite craned his scrawny neck and looked at the Deltan shivering beside the radiation suit. “She is a local, endangered by your experiments.”
Mikel sputtered indignantly, “But ... but surely that doesn’t mean we can’t hire people as subjects! We have to collect data with a variety of different—” He caught sight of one of the Civil Guards touching the radiation suit, and he rushed toward him, waving his arms like a madman.
“Get away from there!” screamed Mikel, startling the man. “Get away! Shoo!”
The scientist hugged the hard-shelled suit as if it were a long-lost friend, then he gently wiped a smudge of dirt from the curved face-plate of its built-in helmet. “Do you know what this equipment is going to do? It’s going to save hundreds of lives—maybe the life of your son or daughter. With this, starship engineers won’t have to risk their lives trying to save the main engines. In this suit, they can work in the middle of a distressed warp core, surrounded by [22] antimatter leaks, and they’ll be safe. It’s got medical monitoring, life support, a communications array, and phase-shifting.”
Leah cringed. The phase-shifting technology was supposed to be a secret, because they had cribbed it from the Romulans without their permission. Even though it had only the standard shielding and reflective materials, what made the suit special was its interphase generator. An oscillating temporal displacement allowed the wearer to be effective in a dangerous environment but slightly removed from it as well. On a much larger scale, the Romulans used the same technology to cloak their ships.
Mikel pointed to her. “My wife here has spent her whole life designing warp engines and propulsion systems, only to see how dangerous her creations became when things went wrong. So she did something about it—she invented this suit. We have to test it under every known condition, including planetary atmosphere, before we can present this prototype to Starfleet. Every day we delay, lives are at risk.”
The head of the Civil Guard scoffed. “Self-important, aren’t you?”
Bounding on his feet beside her, Paldor could stand no more. The Tellarite’s orange hair stood on end, and he wrinkled his snout and puffed out his chest. “No, that would be you, Sir, delaying our work over a technicality! This test is perfectly safe, and we need a female subject.”
“This is Terran Day,” complained one of the human members of the Civil Guard. “Have some respect for our heritage.”
The Tellarite snorted loudly, and Leah Brahms laid a calming hand on his beefy shoulder. “Don’t fight with them, Paldor. Go back to the base and relieve Ellen—send her down here. Then we’ll have two females to finish the test, and none of them will be locals.”
The feisty Tellarite wrinkled his nose with distaste. “But that’s giving into them! There’s a principle involved here.”
“There’s work that’s not getting done,” answered Brahms curtly. [24] “Electricity always takes the path of least resistance, and so do I. Now get going.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Paldor bowed politely to her, then swiveled on his heel and marched out of the clearing.
“And see if you can do something with the food we brought home!” Leah called after him. She had a lot more faith in Paldor’s cooking than in Ellen
’s, which was the main reason she had sent him back. The Tellarite waved to her as he strode beyond the pillars into the open meadow. He was still walking when the transporter beam whisked his molecules away.
Mikel continued to argue with the Civil Guard, while extolling the virtues of the radiation suit. But that was Mikel, thought Leah with quiet frustration: Always so stubborn. Once the argument became about winning the argument, then all was lost. Leah couldn’t think that way. What was the point of winning an argument if it meant wasting time and losing an opportunity?
She approached the Deltan woman who had volunteered to be their subject. “Thanks for sticking around, Margala, but this isn’t going to work. Go ahead and enjoy the holiday—we’ll pay you for your trouble.”
“Are you sure?” asked the woman hesitantly.
Leah nodded, and the young subject hurried away before she could change her mind. Then Leah unsnapped the collar of her tunic and began to take off her clothes.
Mikel and the Civil Guard stopped their pointless conversation to stare at her. “What are you doing?” asked Mikel.
“I’m getting into the suit,” answered Leah. She looked pointedly at their tormentors. “After you leave, there won’t be any more locals to endanger.”
The popinjay with his yellow plume and purple sash looked stunned that he could be dismissed so easily, while a grin spread across Mikel’s face. “Yes, take your posse and go bother somebody else. We’ve got work to do.”
[25] After Leah began to remove her trousers, most of the Civil Guard turned on their heels and politely wandered off. Their spokesman flashed a scowl at Leah, but he eventually turned and strode away, too. Within a few minutes, there was no one left in the meadow except for Leah, her husband, and three technicians. That number swelled to four when Ellen Henricksen walked into the group.
“Where is everybody?” she asked puzzledly. “I thought we had a standoff here.”
“Nope,” said Mikel, proudly hugging his wife. “Leah took care of them. Are you really getting into that thing?”
“For the first trial,” she answered. “Then Ellen is going to take over for me.” The young woman gulped upon hearing that she would be a guinea pig, too.
“Are you sure?” For the first time, Mikel sounded a little nervous as he considered his wife donning the imposing suit during live radiation tests.
“I was the first one to wear it, remember?” Leah took off her pants and handed them to Mikel, having stripped down to her conservative underwear. She wasn’t overly modest in front of this group of people, with whom she lived and worked in close confinement, but she didn’t linger in the chill air. She opened the back of the suit like someone cracking open a giant lobster claw, then climbed in.
Leah mashed her forehead against the clear faceplate as she shoehorned her limbs inside; her grunts echoed loudly in her own ears. The gel interior of the suit molded to the contours of her body, shrinking or expanding as needed. The arms and legs retracted slightly, because she was smaller than the Deltan. Settling into the suit felt like entering a cocoon or jumping into the water—it was alien, disconnected from reality. In the fingers of the gloves, she found the controls, and she turned the suit on.
The upper right corner of the faceplate illuminated, giving her a reflective viewscreen full of instructions. Then she heard a slight [26] whirring noise as the opening in the rear sealed itself tightly. It tickled when the interior molded itself to her buttocks, but that was over in a moment.
Leah felt a flash of claustrophobia when she realized she was completely encased, but she tried to breathe evenly and relax. Although space travel was her business, the scientist didn’t have much cause to wear protective suits, even ones she designed. She tried to tell herself it was no different than wearing a cleanroom suit and hood, although it was completely different. Those lightweight suits were designed to protect the environment from the wearer, not the other way around.
Her uneasiness quickly passed when she remembered all the resources at her disposal, resources she had made sure to include. Leah often imagined the suit as a wearable escape pod, with its own life support, communications, and computer. It contained enough food and water for three days of moderate exertion. She tapped her little finger upward, activating the medical artificial intelligence.
“Systems are normal, Dr. Brahms,” said the suit, recognizing her physiology. “Your pulse rate is elevated thirty-two percent from the rate on your last examination. Would you like me to administer a mild sedative?”
“No thanks,” answered Leah with a smile. Maybe the suit was a little too friendly.
The next voice to cut in was Mikel’s. “Are you all right in there?” She glanced up to see him striding toward her, adjusting his communications headset.
“Just fine,” she answered, giving him a thumbs up. It felt cumbersome to move around, but there wasn’t anything anyone could do about that in normal gravity. In microgravity, the suit could float free or be anchored in any number of positions by embedded magnets. She had tried to think of everything, but it was still daunting to consider the conditions under which the suit would be used. The engine room in chaos, ruptures in the hull, life support failing, core [27] meltdown imminent. But in this suit, an engineer at least had a chance of staying at his post and doing some good.
Leah looked around at the brilliant blue sky, lush green meadow, and short-sleeved workers, thinking this really wasn’t much of a test. Oh, well, Starfleet wanted to see results under every possible condition, including picnic weather.
“Your medical data is coming through,” said Mikel’s voice in her ear. “Just relax, Hon.”
“Okay.” Leah took a deep breath and shook her arms, which barely moved inside the constrictive suit. “Shall I put on phase-shift?”
“Let me get the gel-pack reading first,” answered Mikel, who stepped behind one of the picturesque pillars surrounding the clearing. “Yes, power levels are normal. Go ahead.”
Leah knew the power levels were good, because she could see the readout reflected on her faceplate. But she said nothing. In production models, phase-shifting would be automatic, coming on as soon as the suit was activated. In the prototype, it had to be activated manually for testing purposes.
“Computer, phase-shifting on,” she ordered.
“Phase-shifting on,” answered a voice matter-of-factly.
The lack of any sort of sensation startled Leah, considering that she was wavering in and out of the temporal plane. Here—not quite here—back and forth like a sine wave. In instances when she was present in the real world, she could interact with objects, and those instances blended together to form coherence. It was like a bad singer who used vibrato to make sure she hit the right note at least some of the time.
“Before we go live,” said Mikel, “let’s do some dexterity tests. Logs are recording. Okay, Ellen, toss her the ball.”
The young woman picked up a colorful play ball and stepped closer to the immobile white figure. “Five years at the Daystrom Institute to toss a ball,” muttered Ellen with a smile. Her voice [28] sounded tinny and distant, even though she was only four meters away.
“Ready?”
Leah Brahms nodded, and Ellen bounded forward, tossing the ball with both hands. As it floated through the air on a high arc, the sky above them completely changed colors, shifting from a pale blue to a vivid green. Leah took her eyes off the ball to watch something curious on the horizon. A flaming curtain swept over the distant mountains, throbbing and mutating as if distorted by heat. The snowy peaks erupted in fury, disappearing into rolling clouds of ash and steam. And the ground trembled.
In the peaceful valley, buildings and monorails writhed like snakes on fire, and the city was consumed by the flaming green embers. A squeal sounded in her ears, and columns of readouts on her faceplate began to scroll at a madcap pace. Leah thought there was a malfunction in her suit, and she let the ball bounce off her chest and land at her feet.
As the ball h
it the ground, it exploded, and the soil under her feet began to twist and churn. Leah looked up to see the ungodly wave pass over Ellen Henricksen. Caught in midscream, her skin flared like fire and turned a mottled green before it liquefied. Tissue dripped off her skeleton, which became brittle and crumbled, and her body contracted into a brackish, quivering puddle.
Eyes agape, Leah looked up to see Mikel stagger toward her, the gruesome transformation already ravaging his body. The squeal in her ears might have been his screams as his body contracted into a lumpen mass.
“No!” she yelled in panic. “Mikel! I’m hallucinating! Help me—”
Leah staggered to stay on her feet, because the ground was still erupting, shooting geysers and flaming green embers. This isn’t real, is it? She clomped forward, trying to reach her husband, but there was no trace of him in the churning, twisting inferno.
[28] All across the planet, millions of souls died the same ignominious death, as their flailing limbs were sucked into the seething morass. Towering mountains and tiny pebbles all crumbled into molten, fiery sludge. The seas erupted and boiled, shooting monstrous plumes of steam into the mottled skies. The wind roiled, and great forests of trees flew through the air like so much burnt kindling. The atmosphere became a choking, blood-streaked miasma, and the entire planet throbbed like a sun going nova.
three
Leah Brahms gritted her teeth and tried to hold onto her sanity as the ground convulsed all around her. She looked for the remains of her husband and friends, but their bodies had been absorbed in the cataclysm. Khaki clouds swirled in the sky, quivering vines shot from the ground, and obscene, wormy life-forms writhed in the detritus of a planet in agony.
She sniffed back a wad of mucus and tears, staggering to stay on her feet in the bulky radiation suit. Readouts on her faceplate screen were back to a semblance of normal, although she and the suit were the only things unchanged on the churning landscape. The moonbase! she thought in panic. It might be all right.
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book One Page 3
