Architects of Infinity

by Kirsten Beyer

  To his relief, Data immediately shimmered out of existence.

  Fresh tears rose to Barclay’s eyes. When he turned back to the Doctor, he could barely contain his rage.

  The Doctor clearly sensed the depth of his transgression but remained bewildered. “Reg . . .” he began.

  “Where did you get that file?” Barclay demanded.

  “I found it in our database.”

  “You found it in my personal database,” Barclay corrected him.

  “I found the template in your personal database. I extracted Data’s files to re-create them here so I could study them. I asked you to join me because I have a number of questions I believe you might be able to help me answer.”

  “Questions?” Barclay shook his head in rapid disbelief. “I didn’t create the holodeck program from which you surgically removed this file for you or anyone else. I wasn’t aboard the Enterprise when they encountered Shinzon at Romulus. I never had the opportunity to say good-bye to him. This program exists because I needed to do that. I needed closure, and this was the only way for me to get it.”

  “Reg, I’m so sorry.”

  “I know I should have deleted it, but I couldn’t. It was too hard. It was like killing him again. But I haven’t run this program in almost three years. It was never meant to keep him alive and certainly not for anyone to use it to study him.

  “Countless analyses of Data exist in Starfleet’s records. Commander Bruce Maddox has done the most extensive work to date. If you have questions, you should contact him to satisfy your curiosity.”

  “Please, Reg. I had no idea you would react this way,” the Doctor said softly. “I’ve been consumed by a new case for the last few weeks. One of our officers is suffering from a debilitating terminal illness. We had hoped the cure might lie in stem-cell therapy. As of now, that door is closed to us, and her condition is deteriorating rapidly. It occurred to me that if we aren’t able to reverse it quite soon that, when the time comes, we might be able to temporarily transfer her neural pattern to a holographic buffer. When I was going through the files I found your program and inspiration struck. Perhaps a neural pattern could be stored indefinitely in a positronic brain. Enterprise’s logs indicate that a Doctor Graves once transferred his consciousness into Data, so it is possible.”

  Barclay couldn’t help it. An incredulous laugh escaped his lips before he could think better of it.

  The Doctor blanched, clearly offended.

  “I wouldn’t use that lunatic’s work as the basis for any serious inquiry. I have no idea how Graves did what he did and no intention of helping you figure it out.”

  “But . . .”

  “And even were I so inclined, you’re forgetting the much harder preliminary step—creating a new, functional positronic brain. That’s something even Data could never perfectly reproduce and he was Data. Watching him try and fail with his daughter, Lal, was excruciating.”

  “I understand it might be challenging, Reg, but this is what we do. Past failures are not certain indication of future possibilities. If we worked together, imagine what we might learn and achieve in the process.”

  “I would never,” Barclay insisted.

  “Why not?” the Doctor demanded.

  “It’s disrespectful.”

  The Doctor did Barclay the credit of seriously considering the notion. “Is it disrespectful to re-create Socrates and ask him to demonstrate his method, or to re-create Shakespeare to discuss the pitfalls of iambic pentameter?”

  Barclay stepped back. The shock was wearing off slowly, giving way to the same dull misery he remembered experiencing so frequently in the first few months after he had learned of Data’s death. “No, but . . .”

  “But what? I am trying to solve one of the most difficult medical issues I have ever faced, and Commander Data might hold the key to saving a life.”

  “If re-creating a functional positronic brain is the only solution, your patient is going to die.”

  “But if I can prevent that . . .”

  “Who are you?” Barclay bellowed. “I understand doing everything within your power to cure an illness or prolong a life. But sometimes you can’t. Sometimes people die. Is it your intention to create positronic brains for all of the fleet’s crew? Who decides who might get to use one of these medical marvels and who doesn’t? Never mind the fact that you would be damning them to an existence I’m not sure any of them would appreciate. They might live longer. They might live forever. But you cannot possibly believe that the life of an individual stored in an android’s body, no matter how advanced, can compare favorably to human existence.

  “I knew Data. Data was my friend. He wanted to be human. In some of the most important ways, he was, even though he would probably deny that statement. But I guarantee you that if he were here right now, he’d tell you to stop. And since he can’t, I’m telling you to stop. Don’t do this.”

  The Doctor shook his head slowly, his disappointment clear. “I assumed you of all people would understand the need, would see what I’m trying to do here.”

  “I don’t know what that means, me of all people. We’ve known each other for many years, and in all that time you’ve never intentionally insulted me. I know that wasn’t your goal, but you just did.”

  The Doctor rested his back against the biobed and crossed his arms. “I apologize.”

  “There has to be another way, Doctor. And if you need me, of course I’ll try to help you find it. But you and I aren’t going to create a new positronic brain out here with the limited resources at our disposal. What was wrong with your initial thought . . . a temporary holomatrix?”

  The Doctor shrugged. “Processing power,” he replied. “The last time we did it, we had to pull space from the main computer. We can’t do that safely on Galen. She’s too small.”

  “Yet,” Barclay said. “We can’t do it yet. Give me some time?”

  The Doctor nodded.

  4

  * * *

  VESTA

  . . .eighty-one, eighty-two . . .

  The proximity sensor outside Commander Malcolm Roach’s door chimed.

  . . . eighty-three . . . eighty-four . . .

  “Come in,” Roach called between sit-ups.

  Lying on the deck at the foot of his bed, Roach attacked the remainder of the set with extra vigor as a pair of black boots beneath black uniform pants stepped into view.

  “Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you, Commander,” the voice of Vesta’s young chief engineer, Lieutenant Phinnegan Bryce, said.

  . . . ninety-six . . . ninety-seven . . .

  “You’re not,” Roach insisted, quickly finishing the last three before taking a moment to catch his breath.

  “No, we can discuss this another . . . in the morning . . . or whenever you have a minute,” Bryce said.

  Roach rolled quickly to his side and pushed himself up. As soon as he’d regained his feet, he grabbed a tall glass of water he always kept near at hand and took a generous swig. “What’s on your mind, Bryce?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Commander.”

  Roach considered the lanky young man. His sandy blond hair fell just over his ears, too long for the commander’s taste. He preferred to keep the sides of his jet-black hair almost buzzed and the top around half an inch in length. Bryce had striking blue eyes. They were one of the first things you noticed about him, as they tended toward the intense end of the spectrum.

  Reticent, reluctant, and ill at ease were not words that usually came to mind in Bryce’s presence. As a lieutenant junior grade he had nearly single-handedly saved the first vessel attached to the Full Circle Fleet that Captain Farkas had commanded, the Quirinal, and that minor miracle followed by a few major ones had caused Farkas to ask Bryce to serve as chief engineer when it became clear Preston Ganley wasn’t going to recover from the injuries he sustained when a group of noncorporeal aliens invaded and nearly destroyed the ship. This was an extraordinary leap for such a young engineer, even a gifte
d one, but Bryce tended to shrug off any attempt to remind him that his promotion was well earned. He moved through his duties with assurance, attacked problems with vigor, and maintained a healthy spirit of optimism, even in the darkest of times, while simultaneously remaining low-key and approachable. Roach knew that Bryce was bright as the day was long and rarely at a loss for words. A few seconds of sizing up his obvious discomfort, combined with the realization that Bryce had never requested access to Roach’s personal quarters after hours, left the commander intrigued.

  Dropping onto the edge of his rack, Roach motioned for Bryce to take the room’s only chair opposite him. “Park it, Lieutenant.”

  Roach had served for more than two years as Captain Farkas’s first officer and, as was required by his position, knew every single member of their crew by name and billet. But he tended to keep people at a distance, more than arm’s length whenever possible. He had found as he’d risen through the ranks that this arrangement suited him and the demands of his job. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people. He just lacked the patience to get to know them well and rarely found cause to.

  For a second, Bryce looked ready to bolt. He stepped toward the chair, then reconsidered and assumed a stance somewhere between attention and at ease.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you, Commander, but I wanted to make a request regarding our upcoming team assignments.”

  Roach was taken aback. He and Commander Paris had spent the better part of this day beginning to divide the fleet’s crews into small exploratory teams that no one was supposed to know about yet. Vesta wouldn’t assume orbit around DK-1116 for another thirty-six hours, and it would be another day at least before the security teams determined whether or not this massive waste of time—at least in Roach’s estimation—was going to go forward.

  But if Bryce was already in a loop of which Roach was unaware, he was also likely aware that as chief engineer of Vesta, he would be assigned to work with the other available chiefs, Galen’s Cress Benoit, Demeter’s Garvin Elkins, and the fleet chief, B’Elanna Torres.

  “Which team are we talking about?” Roach asked.

  “The group of engineers I’ll be assigned to once we reach the planet where Seven found that new element.”

  “Those assignments aren’t final yet and more important, no one is supposed to know about them,” Roach said, rising and squaring his shoulders.

  Roach wasn’t the tallest officer in the fleet. Neither was Bryce. Roach compensated by maintaining an exceptional level of physical fitness. Bryce apparently felt no need to do the same. He looked as if a strong wind might take him off his feet. Only his record and a clear inner strength belied that impression.

  “I know, Commander,” Bryce said. “But you know as well as I do that a rumor of two weeks of upcoming shore leave makes its way through the fleet at maximum warp.”

  “If that’s the case you’d better hope the advance survey teams don’t find anything hostile down there.”

  “The last sensor scans I saw showed a bunch of plants, Commander. I think we can take ’em, should the need arise.”

  “So, what’s your request?”

  “I’d like you to consider assigning Ensign Icheb to our group,” Bryce said.

  Ensign Icheb was new to the fleet and over the last few months had been serving as Commander Torres’s personal aide. Voyager’s chief, Nancy Conlon, had been taken off duty indefinitely. Roach knew that Torres was leaning heavily on the ensign, much to the dismay of the rest of Voyager’s engineering staff. Icheb was actually one of the crew members that Paris was considering leaving off the rotation for now.

  “I’m not sure that’s going to be possible. A handful of critical officers will remain on board each of the fleet ships to maintain operational efficiency, and given that Icheb hasn’t been with us that long, Commander Paris thinks he’d be an excellent choice for Voyager’s engine room.”

  Bryce’s face fell, but he soldiered on. Roach liked that in a fellow officer. “I get that. I really do. And if I were Commander Paris, I might come to the same conclusion. I’ve spent a great deal of time with Icheb over the last few months. His assistance was critical in determining potential flight paths following Voyager’s initial encounter with the Krenim and locating the message buoy she dropped. He was the one who figured out the temporal displacement ratios that allowed us to reintegrate the buoy into our time period, and he gave us the down-and-dirty specs on integrating Borg-inspired temporal shielding into our defense grid in a tenth the time it would have taken me to complete. I’m good at what I do, Commander. Part of what I do now is identify potential and make sure it is utilized to the greatest possible advantage. I know two weeks sounds like a lot of time to spend on a single planet, but the advance specs I’ve seen of those biodomes are intimidating as hell. Can you imagine building a starship that could last a thousand years? Forget that, what about a hull plate that could last half that long? Those biodome fields are energy based and they’ve been holding steady for four thousand years. Do you have any idea how many things can happen on a planet or near a planet to alter conditions enough over four thousand years and make technology like that collapse? There’s a regenerative component to those fields, I’d bet my life on it, and no one in our fleet except for Seven knows as much about regenerative systems as Icheb. He’s critical to the work our team will be undertaking.”

  “Benoit and Elkins aren’t exactly slackers, Bryce,” Roach noted.

  “No, they aren’t. In fact, Elkins scares the pants off me. But he’s also been working closely with Icheb over the last few weeks, and I bet if you asked him, he’d second this motion.”

  “It’s not going to be up to me. It’s going to be up to Commander Paris,” Roach said.

  “I understand.”

  “I’d suggest requesting Seven spend some time with you on the surface, but she has already asked to remain on Voyager to study the binaries and the debris fields.”

  “There’s more than enough work to go around,” Bryce agreed.

  A new thought struck Roach. “Is this a professional request, Lieutenant, or a personal one?”

  Bryce responded immediately, “Professional, sir. I would never . . . I mean . . .”

  As he considered the question more fully, the lieutenant’s cheeks reddened ever so slightly.

  “I don’t mean that he’s not . . . but he wouldn’t . . . I mean I don’t know if . . . why? Has he said something?”

  “Shit, Bryce.”

  “Forget I asked. I think our team would benefit from his presence. That’s all. And if he thought for one second I was making this request for any reason other than his obvious abilities . . .”

  Roach had heard enough. “I can’t make any promises. But I will take this under advisement and raise the issue with Commander Paris.”

  “Do you have to tell him I was the one who asked?”

  “I tend toward honesty in all of my interactions with fellow officers, Bryce, if only because the truth is the easiest thing to remember.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “But if it makes you feel better, you make a good case. We’ll consider it on its merits.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Bryce looked just this side of miserable as he left. Roach remembered being that young. He didn’t miss it.

  VOYAGER

  Lieutenant Kenth Lasren was sitting alone in the mess hall, halfway into a bowl of gazpacho, when he suddenly realized someone was sitting to his left. A young boy, his jet-black hair hiding most of his face, was bent low over a padd, furiously keying a calculation.

  More troubling, this boy wasn’t seated in Voyager’s mess hall. He was seated in a classroom.

  Lasren looked to his right. Another young student, this one a girl, her silvery dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. Around her neck was a string of beads, and as she worked her padd with one hand, she absentmindedly counted each individual bead with the other. Her lips moved without any sound escaping as she ta
lked herself through whatever problem she was attempting to solve.

  Beyond her, the row continued as far as Lasren could see. The same was true on the left. Countless rows stood in perfect order in front of him, a sea of standardized desks filled with students engrossed in a complicated mathematical calculation. He didn’t need to look behind to know that there was a battalion of children there, too, all of them striving to do more than complete the problem.

  All of them were united in and defined by the absolute need to find the answer first.

  The anxiety of that room was nothing Lasren had ever known. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the mess hall, the small table at which he had seated himself, and his bowl of soup. When he opened them, Lieutenant Devi Patel had taken the seat across from him.

  Instantly he understood the source of the strange vision. It was unusual, but not a huge mystery.

  Lasren was tired. He had pulled a double operations shift at Chakotay’s request, enhancing long-range scans of the system the fleet was now approaching. His guard was down. Otherwise this odd, deeply personal moment could not have forced its way into his mind. As one of the few Betazoids in the fleet, Lasren was called upon from time to time to utilize his psionic abilities in first-contact situations, but as a rule, he didn’t train it on fellow officers, believing that to be a violation of their privacy.

  The sheer tonnage of expectant anxiety currently animating Patel was rolling off her in waves. In an attempt to clearly identify the emotions overwhelming him, his mind had automatically reached into hers and plucked out a context. He wanted to apologize but odds were she wasn’t even aware he had done it. It certainly hadn’t been intentional.

  “Hi, Devi.”

  “Hi, Kenth. Would you take a look at this for me?”

  She turned the padd she was holding to face him and slid it across the table until it rested by his free hand. It contained an open file consisting of detailed sensor scans of a large pool of water located on the surface of DK-1116. Despite the official attempts at secrecy, like everyone else on board, Lasren was well aware of the fleet’s new mission and was thrilled with the prospect of a brief respite from the chaos that usually seemed to characterize the Delta Quadrant. He recognized the data as he had compiled it during alpha shift. What he did not understand was Patel’s interest in the site or the intensity it provoked in her.