by Greg Cox
“Information, entanglement, cosmic strings connecting all things . . . ” Eljor wheezed and coughed, as though choking on hir own fluids. “A universe is nothing but information if you know how to read it . . . ”
Hir words trailed off into another ragged cough.
Una figured that was as much explanation as she was going to get right now. “Never mind,” she said, wondering just how long the failing scientist had left. “Save your energy.”
Heavy objects slammed repeatedly against the door from outside. A battering ram, Una wondered, or maybe a volley of sentry globes dive-bombing the door? Standing guard before the besieged entrance, April called out to them.
“Whatever you need to do, do it soon.”
“You heard the captain,” Una said to Eljor, hoping there was still a chance to rescue Tim and the others from their undeserved exile, preferably before the Enterprise fled the system without them. April had informed her of the approaching deadline back in the laboratory, so Una understood they had a good chance of getting stranded on Usilde—if Woryan’s troops didn’t dispose of them first. “Make it snappy.”
“The urgency . . . has not escaped me.” Eljor manipulated a small rectangular control panel embedded in the larger apparatus above the pedestal. Buttons and knobs of unknown function framed a small, data slate–sized viewscreen. “Allow me . . . a few more moments.”
In the looming cylinder, the holographic view of the Enterprise’s bridge was replaced by a three-dimensional projection of the entire planet, rotating slowly in space. At the same time, the majority of the screens occupying the walls were taken over by scenes from all over the planet, including the labor camp in the contaminated river valley. The views subdivided into smaller and smaller windows, each highlighting a different Jatohr until it seemed as though every alien on the planet had been targeted. Eljor weakly croaked a verbal command, and every Jatohr on the screens was selected as a photo-negative image. Even Woryan, who continued to rail at them from a single large monitor, was now depicted in negative.
“Wait,” Una said, not liking what she was seeing. “What are you doing?”
“That which is necessary,” the scientist wheezed. “Forgive me, my beloved people.”
S/he pressed a button on the control panel—and the Jatohr went away.
White light flashed from every screen, briefly washing out all the color in the control room, as every Jatohr in every window simultaneously blinked out of existence. Woryan’s glowering visage vanished along with the others. The pounding at the door ceased abruptly, as did all shouting and commotion outside. The entire citadel seemed to fall silent, so that Una could hear nothing but her own pounding heartbeat and the obvious agony in Eljor’s weak, wet voice.
“It’s done,” the Jatohr said. “They’re gone . . . all of them.”
Fourteen
April lowered his pistol. He gazed at the emptied screens in shock.
“Oh my God,” he whispered, turning to look at Eljor. “What have you done?”
The scientist leaned heavily against the generator controls. S/he looked even worse than s/he had mere moments before. Hir wounds were still bleeding profusely, so that Eljor appeared to be literally drying up right before April’s eyes. Hir voice was weak and halting.
“I undid my greatest mistake . . . and sent my people back . . . where we came from.”
April tried to grasp the enormity of what had just occurred. “All of them?”
“All . . . from everywhere on the planet.” A wet, congested sigh escaped hir damaged lung. “I am now the last Jatohr still living on Usilde, if not for very much longer . . .”
April glanced around at the control room. One by one, the screens were going blank as the generator powered down, although a subdued rumbling still came from elsewhere in the citadel. The holographic-imaging cylinder held nothing but an empty void. “You sent your people back, but not the citadel?”
“There was . . . no other choice,” Eljor explained. “If I banished the sanctuary as well, my people could simply use it to . . . return to this realm.” Hir tentacles retracted into hir face so that only their tops could be seen, while hir head and throat were retracting as well. “And re-creating the Transfer Key is no easy task, not without my genius to guide them. It is unlikely that the Jatohr will ever threaten your universe again . . .”
“But I don’t understand,” April said, putting away his weapon. “You said you were only going to disable the transfer device, not use it to expel your entire species from the planet.”
“A deception on my part,” the scientist confessed. “Even without the Key, my people possessed . . . technology enough to subdue this planet. Only by removing the Jatohr entirely could the Usildar have a chance . . . to regain their world.” Hir head sagged forward. “If it is not already too late . . .”
What did he mean by that? April wondered. The environmental contamination that the landing party had reported before?
“But you didn’t need to do that,” he insisted. “The Federation could have protected the Usildar and found a way for both your species to endure.”
“Despite your Directive against interfering?” Hir sunken eyestalks met his gaze. “I could not ask you to violate your own laws . . . nor take the chance that they would prevent you from saving the Usildar from the evil I brought upon them . . .”
Una remained intent on her own prime directive. “But what about our people? You were going to bring them back!”
“There was no time,” Eljor said, “and the reactor must never be reactivated . . . lest my people find a way back to this realm.” Fumbling digits wrested the compact rectangular control panel from its slot in the larger apparatus. “Behold the Transfer Key. Without it, this sanctuary is but a shell . . .”
The Key looked innocuous enough, like some sort of portable scanner or data slate. April found it hard to accept that this small, unimpressive device, which was barely larger than the Enterprise’s chronometer back on the bridge, could be the primary component of the Jatohr’s fearsome super-weapon.
“This little thing?” Una scoffed. “This is what allowed you to cross from universe to universe, and to enslave the Usildar, and to condemn good men and women to some forsaken alien reality? This so-called Key?”
“Do not be fooled by its size,” Eljor said forcefully, despite hir declining strength. “In the multiverse, all dimensions are relative, and the difference between the infinite . . . and the infinitesimal . . . is merely a matter of perspective . . .”
A choking fit cut off hir lecture. S/he crumpled to the floor, landing in the puddle of sticky green blood and mucous. Hir dry, desiccated body had shriveled dramatically, as though there was more of hir spilled outside hir skin than was left inside. Hir shattered carapace threatened to swallow up hir actual physical form. Trembling digits reached up to pass the Key to April.
“Take this. Guard it. Tell no one of it. Not even your own Federation.”
April accepted the device, but balked at the dying scientist’s injunction. “I’m not certain I can do that. I have a responsibility to report on what happened here.”
“But what of your Prime Directive? Does not its wisdom apply to me as well . . . and to the Key I rashly brought to your universe? Do not let me go to oblivion knowing that I have . . . forever interfered with this realm.” Hir wrinkled skin was flaking and falling off. Hir tremulous voice was barely more than a whisper. “Swear to me, in the spirit of the Prime Directive you so revere, that you will not . . . let my creation . . . pervert the course of future events.”
The scientist’s desperate, dying request was hard to deny. Even Una, who was doubtless still upset over Eljor’s failure to rescue Martinez and the others, appeared moved by the Jatohr’s fervent plea. April guessed that, after what had happened to her landing party, she understood too well what it was like to be haunted by a mistake you couldn’t take back. He h
oped she could forgive herself in time.
“I’ll do what I can,” he promised Eljor. “Rest easy, Professor.”
Eljor sank away, practically melting into hir own spilled substance. Hir lips moved and Una had to strain to make out the scientist’s final words.
“Never tell . . . never forget . . .”
“Never,” Una whispered to herself. “Not as long as I live.”
The last Jatohr fell still and silent. The once-brilliant scientist was now little more than a dried husk drowning in a spreading green puddle. Una scanned the remains with her tricorder but detected no life signs. She shook her head at April.
“Gone?” he asked anyway.
“Like the other Jatohr, if not quite in the same way.”
“You don’t sound too broken up about it, Lieutenant.”
“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll forgive me if I mourn our losses instead.”
April gave her a searching look. “Fair enough, Una. I grieve for Martinez and the others as well. Their bravery and sacrifice will be remembered for as long as I’m captain of the Enterprise . . . and beyond.”
He flipped open his communicator. “April to Enterprise.”
Lorna Simon’s voice responded almost immediately. “Good to hear from you, Captain. We were starting to fear that you were going to miss our departure.”
A reasonable fear, April conceded, given that there had been less than ten minutes to spare. He and Una had called in practically down to the wire.
“Don’t go anywhere just yet. The situation down here has been resolved, in a manner of speaking.”
“Oh? And how is that?”
“It’s a long, rather sad story.” He contemplated Eljor’s lifeless remains and the empty citadel all around him. The Jatohr’s sanctuary had become a ghost town, just another failed colony like so many other deserted ruins throughout the galaxy, haunted by the doleful specters of lost hopes and dreams. “I’ll give you the full particulars later, after Lieutenant Una and I beam back to the ship.”
“Just you and Lieutenant Una, Captain?”
“I’m afraid so, Lorna.” He paused before delivering the bad news. “There are . . . no other survivors.”
Silence ate up the transmission as that harsh truth sank in. “Damn. I’m sorry to hear that, Captain.”
“No more than I, Lorna. Believe me.” He supposed that Martinez and the others could be listed as missing in action, as opposed to deceased, but that would be small consolation to their friends and families. As always, he knew that for every crew member the Enterprise lost during her voyages, many, many, more lives were irrevocably altered as well. He felt a sudden yearning for his own family. “Is Sarah there on the bridge?”
“I’m here, Rob,” his wife’s voice chimed in. He guessed that she was standing by the captain’s chair, alongside Simon. “When are you coming home?”
“Soon,” he promised. “We’re almost done here. There’s just . . . a few more matters we need to attend to.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” Simon said. “We can lock onto your communicators at any time. Let us know when you want us to beam you back here.”
“Stand by,” he said. “April out.”
He put away his communicator and inspected the Transfer Key. He regarded it pensively as he turned it over and over in his hands. It was surprisingly lightweight, considering that it carried the potential to wreak untold havoc on the galaxy.
“What are you going to do about that, sir?” Una asked. “And hir final request?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Deep down inside, I fear that Eljor was right, that this Key is too dangerous to let loose in our universe. Suppose it fell into the hands of the Klingons or the Orions or even someone like Kodos the Executioner. Imagine what Kodos could have done with this Key. How easily he could have ‘removed’ those he deemed unfit to survive.”
Only a few years in the past, the tyrant’s genocidal atrocities were still spoken of in horror throughout the Federation. The Enterprise had been one of the first starships to arrive on the scene in the wake of the massacre, bearing food and medical supplies that arrived too late for the half of the population that Kodos had ruthlessly put to death. The memory of that ghastly crime still haunted April, and served as a cautionary example of the evil that supposedly civilized beings were capable of, even in the twenty-third century.
One hand went to the pistol on the captain’s hip. “Perhaps it would be better to simply destroy this bloody thing before it can cause any more heartache.”
“Don’t,” Una urged him, “for science’s sake, if nothing else. Even if you don’t think the galaxy is ready for it just yet, perhaps the future will be.”
Activating her tricorder, Una made a methodical circuit of the control room, recording as much data as the device could hold. She gave special attention to the central column, scanning it from every angle and along every spectrum.
“We may not fully understand this technology now,” she stressed, “but that doesn’t mean it might not prove invaluable to the Federation at some point. If you feel you must honor the late Professor Eljor’s wishes, perhaps we can merely conceal the Key until . . . whenever.”
“That might be best,” April decided. In truth, the scientist and explorer in him also resisted the idea of completely eliminating a genuine artifact from another universe, let alone one that held the secret to unlocking the multiverse, even if that artifact also unquestionably threatened to destabilize the balance of power throughout known space “We’ll hide it then, from the galaxy and from the records, for posterity’s sake.”
He tucked the Key into Una’s backpack, so that it would not attract any attention when they beamed back to the ship. He’d have to find a better hiding place for it later.
“Is that it?” Una slung her tricorder over her shoulder. “Are we done here?”
“Not quite. There’s still one last task before us.”
He gazed down at Eljor’s grisly remains, drew his laser pistol, and twisted the setting on the weapon to maximum. He squeezed the trigger and an incandescent beam completely incinerated all that was left of the tragic scientist, leaving nothing but a blackened scorch mark on the floor.
“Now we can go.” He put away the pistol and flipped open his communicator. “April to Enterprise. Bring us home.”
* * *
The secret compartment was installed behind a bookshelf in the captain’s spacious quarters aboard the Enterprise. April placed the Transfer Key into the hidden niche and watched grimly as an automated panel slid into place, hiding it from view.
“There we are,” he said. “For better or for worse.”
A small party—consisting entirely of the captain, his wife, the first officer, and Una—was gathered in April’s quarters to witness the interment of the Key. As far as they knew, they were the only living beings in the universe who knew of the artifact’s existence or its whereabouts.
It’s better that way, Una thought. At least for the present.
“The compartment is built into a negative space behind the bulkhead,” Una reminded the captain, “so it should go undetected unless anyone goes looking for it. And I’ve programmed the lock to open only to the code you selected.”
She had done the installation herself in order to keep the secret contained to just the four people in this room. Ordinarily, there’d be no reason to include the ship’s medical officer in the conspiracy, but given that these were her private quarters too . . .
“Thank you, Una.” The captain regarded the panel uneasily. “I just hope we’re doing the right thing, keeping this from Starfleet. I admit that it goes against my grain to take part in a cover-up.”
As Una understood it, the “official” story more or less matched what had occurred on Usilde, aside from the game-changing revelation of the Jatohr’s origins and the salient fact that the
Key had been passed on to Captain April. According to the logs, the Enterprise had simply encountered a colony of hostile alien explorers, of unknown origin, that had inflicted casualties on the ship’s crew by means of a mysterious weapon, before the Jatohr had retreated back to wherever they came from, abandoning their outpost on the planet. April had further recommended that the planet’s native inhabitants be left alone to chart their destiny, in accordance with the Prime Directive.
At least some good came of our visit, Una thought. The Usildar were now free to reclaim their world, without any interference from the Jatohr or anyone else. If only their salvation had not cost us nine of our own . . . including my best friend.
“Then again,” Sarah April said to her husband, “this isn’t the first time you’ve omitted a detail or two from your logs for humanitarian reasons. Remember those Durganian refugees, hiding out on that moon, who wanted the whole galaxy to think they were dead? Or that time you fudged the logs so that no one would ever know what really happened to Lieutenant Emmett . . . or what he became.”
“Granted,” the captain said. “I suppose there are times that the whole truth can do more harm than good, even though that runs counter to my sworn duty to Starfleet.”
“You ask me, you’re making the right call,” Simon said. “That infernal device has already caused enough trouble. Let’s keep this to ourselves, at least until a new captain takes over the ship and has to be let in on the secret.”
Given Simon’s advanced age, she was unlikely to succeed April as captain of the Enterprise, and everyone knew it. Rumor had it she was planning to retire after the end of this five-year mission, meaning that the Key would shortly fall into other hands.
“That’s the plan,” April confirmed. “And that future captain can share the secret with their own first officer, just in case.”
Simon looked pointedly at Una. “If she doesn’t know it already, that is.”
Una took the prediction in stride.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence, Commander, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
