Being Human

by Peter David

  A man with a bird’s head was standing directly behind her, eyeing her soup.

  He was dressed in what appeared to Soleta to be a variation on Egyptian garb, except he had wings. Well . . . not exactly wings. They were more winglike ornaments that ran the length of either arm, festooned with a mixture of black and white feathers. His head . . . well, it was indeed a bird’s head. The yellow eyes rotated to fix on her, the head itself was entirely white feathers, and the beak was very long and narrow, the sort of beak sported by the bird known as the ibis. Something that appeared to be a crown was perched atop his head.

  Not for a moment did Soleta come even close to being disconcerted. Instead she studied him for a time. She was able to do so in relative peace, since the room was deathly quiet. Then Lieutenant Beth, who had just been finishing breakfast with Lieutenant Goodwin, reached up and tapped her com badge. “Dining hall to security,” she started to say.

  Immediately Soleta said, “Cancel that, Lieutenant. That won’t be necessary.” She slid the soup to the far side of the table, in front of the chair that was opposite her. “Have you had breakfast, Thoth?” she inquired, as if being faced with a man with a bird’s head was something she had to deal with routinely every morning.

  His beak clicked as he spoke. “I have not, no. But I do not need to eat in your conventional sense.”

  “It is new experiences that make life interesting. Can you remove that . . . device?”

  For a long moment more, the yellow eyes fixed upon her. And then Thoth reached up to the base of his throat, which, until he touched it, appeared perfectly fused with his dark brown flesh. But when he touched it, it peeled away, and his bird’s head retracted up and into the crown.

  The face that was revealed was rather handsome at that. His complexion was as dark as the rest of his skin, but his features were almost delicate. A slender nose, a thin mouth, an angular jaw, and his eyes . . . amusingly, his eyes were as yellow as the bird’s eyes in the mask that had just vanished into the crown. He had a peaceful, almost gentle look to him that Soleta couldn’t help but find mildly attractive. Considering the looks that he was getting from other women in the place—and a couple of the men—she wasn’t the only one who considered him in that way.

  He looked down at the soup, and then held out a hand. She placed the spoon in it and, very carefully so as not to spill any, he dipped the spoon into the soup, lifted it to his lips, and took a cautious sip. He pursed his lips a moment, and then nodded. “Intriguing,” he said.

  “I would not have thought to describe soup as ‘ intriguing,’ but I will accept your analysis,” she told him.

  He continued to eat the soup. “You do not seem surprised to see me.”

  “It takes a good deal to surprise me,” she said, making no attempt to sound modest. “McHenry told me that Artemis said you might be coming.”

  “Yes. This was quite good.” He seemed a bit startled when he realized that he had finished the soup.

  “You are Thoth,” she said. “The Egyptian moon god who oversees such disciplines as writing, astronomy, mathematics, law, magic . . .”

  “Magic to the ancient Egyptians,” he clarified for her. “I daresay that what you have here would certainly qualify as magic insofar as the ancients would be concerned. What is magic to some is, to others, science. But you seem to know a good deal about me, whereas I know nothing of you.”

  She was all too aware that every eye in the place was upon her. “I think it would be best,” she said slowly, “if we were to meet with the captain. You are, after all, a newcomer to this vessel, and it would be best if that procedure were followed.”

  “As you wish,” he said.

  Soleta quickly ascertained that Calhoun was on the bridge, in the captain’s ready room, in conference with McHenry. Telling Calhoun of what had just occurred, and assuring him that a security escort was not going to be necessary, she set out down the corridor toward the turbolift with Thoth at her side. She resolutely ignored the looks and double takes she got from others as they passed by.

  “You still have told me nothing of yourself,” he reminded her.

  “My name is Soleta,” she said briskly, as if it was a matter of no consequence, “I am the ship’s science officer, I am a Vulcan . . .”

  “And Romulan.”

  He spoke so automatically, so effortlessly, that it caught her completely off guard. She spun to face him, eyes wide, unable to believe what she had just heard. “How did you—?”

  “So it does not take all that much to surprise you after all,” Thoth observed.

  She lowered her voice, suddenly extremely apprehensive about being overheard by someone passing by. Fortunately at the moment that Thoth had chosen to blurt out her dual nature, there had been no one immediately around to hear. “How did you know?”

  He smiled at her indulgently. “I am a god of truth. If it is spoken, I know. If it is not, I know . . . and will also know that which is not said. Call it a talent.”

  “I will call it none of your business, if you do not mind,” she said, walking quickly down the corridor again with Thoth following her easily. She couldn’t help but notice how perfect his stride was, and how his muscles seemed to ripple so elegantly as he moved. With extreme effort, she remained focused on the subject. “You came here because of my research into this area of space?”

  The turbolift was just ahead of them, and they stepped in. They turned to face one another as the doors closed. “I know that you have some curiosity about it.”

  “Bridge,” she said, and as the turbolift moved toward its destination, continued, “I am detecting energy waves, readings in patterns for which I have been able to find no precedent. I have not been able to detect one centralized source, and the very nature of the energy escapes me.”

  “Do you have any speculation, Soleta of Vulcan and Romulus?”

  “Will you . . .” Her voice was far louder than she would have liked, especially in the confines of the turbolift, and she lowered it as she said, “Will you . . . please . . . not make mention of that again?”

  “It is a tragic thing to be ashamed of one’s heritage.”

  “It is a tragedy I am willing to live with,” she said flatly. “The consequences of my silence on this matter, however, I would prefer not to have to live with, if it is all the same to you. And by the way, you are not a god.”

  He smiled that megawatt smile. “Are you quite certain?”

  “An advanced being, yes, but not a god.”

  “That is very much in the eye of the beholder, is it not? To those who worshipped me . . . you would be a god. Or . . .” He studied her ears, chuckling softly. “. . . perhaps the devil. Who can say?”

  “The energy waves,” she said, trying to drag the conversation kicking and screaming back to something that would be of use to her. “Are your people responsible for generating them? If so, is it a sort of spillage or overflow from your power source? Does it present a danger? Are there ways it can be harnessed? Do you—what’s wrong?”

  She had seen the change in his expression. Something had most definitely occurred, and she had no clue what. But it had unquestionably changed the nature of the meeting, because his expression was very clouded and his yellow eyes were deeply troubled. “Thoth,” she said again, “what’s—?”

  “It is a pity,” he interrupted her abruptly, “that you desired to know what was generating the unknown energy waves you detected. For circumstances have arisen that will enable you to find out . . . firsthand. And it will not be a pleasant experience.”

  Soleta most definitely did not like the sound of that. “That sounds suspiciously like a threat, Thoth. I do not think threats will be necessary.” She turned as the turbolift doors opened and said, “Come. If we speak to the captain, I am quite sure that he will—”

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Burgoyne, turning in hir chair to look at the entering Soleta in puzzlement.

  Soleta stopped and looked over her shoulder. Only th
e empty car of the turbolift was behind her. Otherwise there was no sign of Thoth.

  “He’s gone,” said an annoyed Soleta.

  “He’s gone?” asked Burgoyne, getting to his feet. Kebron likewise seemed most interested in the conversation. “Who’s gone?”

  “Thoth,” she said, feeling like a fool for scrutinizing the inside of the obviously empty turbolift, as if Thoth might somehow have shrunk to minuscule size.

  “A god.”

  “Another one?” Kebron said, sounding rather exasperated by the entire thing. “Why not a fleet of them while we’re at it?”

  Ten seconds later, Kebron would have cause to regret having said a word.

  ii.

  At the exact moment that Soleta was first encountering Thoth, Mackenzie Calhoun was summoning Mark McHenry into his ready room. McHenry entered, looking rather nervous to Calhoun, like a small boy being summoned to the principal’s office for talking back to the teacher or getting into fights. To some degree, Calhoun’s heart went out to him. McHenry hadn’t asked for any of this, and would very likely have been more than happy to go on about his life with no involvement of gods or goddesses or Cyclops or dragons or whatever the hell else opted to step out of the pages of myth and legend and insert itself into the affairs of the Excalibur. But, Calhoun reasoned, there was no whining about it. The situation was what it was, and the only option they had left open to them was to deal with it.

  Calhoun, from behind his desk, gestured for McHenry to sit. He did so, so awkwardly that it seemed as if he’d forgotten how to get his knees to bend. Calhoun tried to adopt as avuncular a manner as possible as he folded his hands and smiled at McHenry. “So . . . interesting times we’re living in, wouldn’t you say, Mr. McHenry?”

  “If you mean ‘interesting’ as in the old Chinese curse, Captain, I’d have to agree,” said McHenry. He seemed a bit haggard, as if he hadn’t been sleeping much lately. Given everything that had been going on, that seemed quite likely.

  “Look, McHenry . . . Mark . . . I can’t tell you what to do . . .”

  “Actually, you can,” McHenry said with what seemed a jump in hope. “You’re the captain. You can do exactly that. You can tell me what to do, and I’d have to do it.”

  “All right, point taken, I suppose I can tell you what to do. I am, however, choosing not to.”

  “Damn,” muttered McHenry, sagging back in the chair. He looked rather depressed, and yet Calhoun had to make an effort not to smile.

  “I am, however, extremely curious about several matters in front of us,” Calhoun said. “Kebron came to me this morning . . .”

  “Oh, God,” moaned McHenry, sinking further into his chair.

  “Mark, he is still your friend . . .”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “He could have sought me out far earlier, Mark, and told me about his observations and suspicions. He was, in fact, belatedly chagrined over the fact that he didn’t. He told me if it had been anyone else, he would have come straight to me. But because of your long relationship, he wanted to be absolutely sure, wanted to give me every chance . . .”

  “To hang myself?”

  Calhoun sighed and shook his head. “The personal aspects of this matter, Mark, will be something you need to take up personally with Kebron. What interests me now is what he told me.”

  “And . . . what did he tell you?” asked McHenry, his eyes narrowing.

  “He told me that you faced down a member of the Q Continuum. Not just any member, in fact . . . but the Q who has made such a point of making Jean-Luc Picard’s life so . . . interesting . . .”

  “There’s that word again.”

  He nodded, and laughed softly at the notion. But then he grew serious again. “He said that Q was physically transforming individuals . . . but was either unable or unwilling to do so with you. And he appeared somewhat surprised . . . even taken aback by you. Considering the degree of power that Q wields, that is a remarkable reaction, to say the least.” He paused. McHenry didn’t volunteer to say anything. “Do you want to explain it?” he prompted.

  “I’m . . . afraid to.”

  Calhoun stared at him, uncertain what to make of that. “You mean . . . you’re afraid of recriminations . . . ?”

  “No. I’m just . . . afraid to think about it.” He let out an unsteady breath. “Captain . . . the older I’ve gotten . . . the more I’ve felt like . . . like I’m becoming one of them.”

  “Them. You mean the Beings.”

  McHenry nodded, his face wan. “You have . . . you have no idea what it’s like. I mean, when people hit puberty, there are always changes, you know? That’s natural. When it happened to me, though, I felt . . . I was able to reach out, to . . . I . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it, really. And then Artemis and I became . . . you know . . .”

  “Lovers?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you broke it off.”

  “Because I was afraid,” he said. “When I would be with her . . . I mean, with her, you know . . . ?”

  “Yes, I get the picture, Mr. McHenry.”

  “Well . . .” And he seemed to be casting his thoughts back to that time. “I felt like . . . like she was doing more than . . . you know. I felt as if she was unlocking something, pushed a button in my head that I didn’t even know was there. That’s why I broke it off. Hell, maybe that’s why I joined Starfleet . . . to try and run away from . . . from everything, I guess. The thing is, once she pushed that button, there was no going back, and I think it’s been building over the years. And I’m becoming . . .”

  “More like them, you said. But what do you mean by that, exactly?”

  McHenry couldn’t sit still anymore. He was out of his chair, pacing. “You see them,” he said. “You see her. They’re all the same. Beings who have energy at their base . . . who are able to manipulate it in a variety of ways, depending on their individual skills. Beings who . . . who . . .”

  “Who what?”

  He stopped pacing and lowered his voice, as if afraid of the words about to come out of his own mouth. “Who look human . . . purely because they choose to look human. And I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking the reason Q couldn’t alter my appearance . . . was because my belief in what I look like, in what I am . . . held me together. Made me immune to him. But naturally that makes me start to wonder . . .”

  “How solid your hold on your humanity is?”

  McHenry nodded bleakly.

  “You think . . . that if you stop believing in your appearance . . . in yourself . . . that you will become just like them. That you’ll lose your humanity completely.”

  Again McHenry nodded, looking ashamed, looking frustrated, looking scared.

  “That’s why you’ve been secretive about it. That’s why you’ve tried to repress it.”

  “That’s just it,” said McHenry, turning to face Calhoun once more, leaning with his hands on the back of the chair he’d just been sitting in. “I haven’t been trying to repress it as much as I should.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took in a deep breath to steady himself. “Ever since Artemis and I were lovers . . . ever since she flipped that switch . . . my head’s been different. It’s as if I’m able to be everywhere at the same time, if I just think about it. Like there’s so much information out there, more than I can handle, more than anyone can handle, that I just have to sit there and let it wash over me. I’m able to . . . how do I explain this . . . ?” His voice trailed off and Calhoun sat patiently, letting McHenry take his time, phrase it in his own way. “It’s like . . . like I’m keyed into the universe at a space-time level,” he said finally. “That’s how I always know where I am, no matter what. At first I was afraid to do even that, but hey, it got me through the Academy, so I didn’t want to question it.”

  “Well, that’s . . . that’s not such a bad thing, Mark . . . in the final analysis . . .”

  “Except that’s not the final analysis, Captain. It’s not the final
anything. You see, the more I used this . . . this ‘ability’ of mine . . . the more I felt like I could do other things. Things I’m afraid to do because it’d bring me closer to being one of them.”

  Slowly the light was beginning to dawn for Calhoun. “What . . . sort of things, Mark?”

  He wanted to look down, but instead he forced himself to meet his captain’s gaze. “Like . . . affecting the space-time continuum on a local level. I only did it the one time, and I wasn’t even sure I could do it then. And when I did, it left me so exhausted, I could barely move for three days . . .”

  Slowly Calhoun got to his feet, staring at McHenry as if seeing him for the first time. “When the Excalibur blew up . . .”

  “Yes . . .”

  “There . . . really wasn’t enough time to get everyone off the ship . . .”

  McHenry shook his head, looking miserable. “I’m so sorry, Captain . . .”

  “Sorry?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “I wish I could have done more. If only I could have turned time backward somehow . . . prevented the entire destruction . . .”

  “Mark! You’re telling me that somehow you . . . you warped time? Took the five minutes that we had to get off the ship and just . . . just stretched it to fifteen or twenty, as if it was elastic . . . ?”

  McHenry shrugged. “Well, there is a certain amount of subjective elasticity to time. That’s why time really does fly when you’re having fun, but drags on if you’re involved in some boring duty. It’s just an aspect of science that no one’s really explored because they don’t know it’s there to be explored. I call it Chronal Infarction myself, although I’m sure smarter people than me will wind up calling it something else. Plus we use the warp engines to bend space and time around us anyway. So I was able to tap into the energy being given off by the overloading warp engines to slow things down. Make time bend to my subjective point of view. Of course, I had to convince myself that time was slowing down, which wasn’t easy. But thought made it deed, and, well . . .” He shrugged, looking a bit self-conscious about the whole thing.