Patel watched the spectacle, a sick pit growing in her stomach as some of the emerging shapes became more coherent: an arm, a leg, a torso. Her mind rejected what she was seeing. It was impossible. You are simply trying to make sense of this, a calm, rational voice insisted. But that explanation lost credibility when one end of the black mass seemed to push itself up into being, a head above a torso and two arms emerging clearly. As soon as the head turned to face her, shrieks of unutterable pain reverberating all around her, Patel glimpsed the features of the face. It was like looking into a mirror. The shape of the face was hers. Morbid fascination held her there for a few seconds as the shape of the face distorted and then settled again into something recognizable as herself.
The things in the other cells, those were finished works. This thing was in the process of becoming, and whatever else it was, part of it was her.
Patel retreated a few steps, trying desperately to calm herself. As she did so, the form seemed to briefly solidify. She stared at a grotesque mirror image, where her flesh was black fluid and her uniform was twisted metal.
Its lips moved, not simply opening in a cry, but with greater precision, although the noise was still a shriek. From above, however—the sphere, Patel quickly realized—a more familiar sound reverberated.
“Interlocutor complete. Is this interface acceptable?”
No, Patel wanted to scream. If watching the thing taking shape had been alarming, hearing it speak to her was a vision that was going to populate her nightmares for years to come.
The creature repeated the question. “Is this interface acceptable?”
“I understand you, if that’s what you’re asking,” Patel replied.
“Interface established.”
There were a million questions running through Patel’s mind, but she found it difficult to settle on just one. The obvious was the first she uttered. “What are you?” she asked.
“Interface for Species 196.2,” the thing replied.
Suddenly Patel was struck by a thought. Looking at her punctured palm, she asked, “Did you create yourself using my blood?”
“Biological sampling is mandatory for all species.”
That sounded like a yes.
“What is the purpose of the creation of this interface?”
“Interface is required for proper data retrieval and classification. Species 196.2 has been detected in twelve experimental stations. Environmental modifications for all inhabited stations complete.”
“You altered the atmosphere within the biodomes to accommodate us?”
“Environmental modifications for all inhabited stations complete.”
Whatever this thing was, there were obviously limits to its linguistic parameters.
“What is this place?” Patel asked.
“Sector four data storage and retrieval.”
“No, not this room, this planet,” Patel said, growing impatient.
“Imprecise query.”
“Okay,” Patel said, not really understanding why this was a hard question. She tried another tack. “Are you responsible for the creation and maintenance of the environmental systems operating in sector four?”
“Interlocutor interface required for data storage and retrieval.”
That sounded like a no.
“Who created this system?”
“Species 001.”
“Does Species 001 have a name?”
A high-pitched tone followed by several clicks and a wheeze was the answer to this question. Clearly whatever the name of Species 001 was, there wasn’t a word for it in Patel’s language.
“Are any representatives of Species 001 present now?”
“Negative.”
“For what purpose did Species 001 create the system?”
“Evaluation and propagation of the Edrehmaia.”
Edrehmaia? That wasn’t a word this thing could have pulled from whatever limited exposure it had to Patel’s knowledge.
“What is the Edrehmaia?”
“Object of inquiry.”
This was as frustrating as it was illuminating. “What is the current status of the operating system?”
“Containment system modifications detected. These modifications will result in system termination and closure.”
That didn’t sound good. In fact, that sounded like something Patel’s commanding officers needed to know immediately.
“How long until system closure is complete?”
“At current penetration rates, system will be terminated in eleven hours, sixteen minutes, nine seconds.”
“Can you reverse the modifications?”
“Negative.”
“What happens when the system termination and closure is complete?”
“Insufficient data.”
“It’s your system. You don’t know?”
“Containment created to delay system termination in order to determine intent of Edrehmaia. Insufficient data present to determine intent.”
Pieces of this puzzle were starting to fall into place in Patel’s mind.
“You are saying that Species 001 came here and created this system in order to evaluate the intention of the Edrehmaia and to propagate it if possible?”
“Affirmative.”
“But they never gathered enough data to determine intent or to re-create the Edrehmaia?”
“Affirmative.”
“And the actions of Species 196.2 have broken system containment?”
“Affirmative.”
“Will this containment failure and system closure effect the data stored here?”
“Do you wish to secure sector four data storage?”
“Absolutely. Yes,” Patel replied automatically.
“Security protocol enabled.”
“Good. Thank you,” Patel said.
There were so many more questions to be asked. But before she could do so, the form began to undulate again, as if it was losing cohesion.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“All available power required for security maintenance. Interface system will be terminated.”
“No,” Patel cried out. “Wait, please.”
The light above the alcove flickered and dimmed. Her doppelganger melted to the floor, where it remained, a torso of metal, melted arms, and a face of black goo tipped forward as if it had suddenly decided to take a nap.
Considering the occupants of the other cells, it occurred to Patel that this interface would continue to exist, probably in this form, for as long as the sector for data retrieval and storage system remained intact. It was as comforting as it was horrifying. Lasren had sensed “life” and “anger” from the inhabitants of these cells. Given how long some of them had been here, she understood the anger. The life was harder to quantify but equally unmistakable.
Patel bolted back down the corridor, running headlong into a solid form that grabbed her firmly.
“Devi?”
The arms that held her were Lasren’s. Behind him, Vincent and Jepel stared at her in wide-eyed alarm.
“Go,” was all she could manage.
“Devi, calm down,” Lasren pleaded. He was just this side of trying to shake some sense into her. It was much too late for that. Patel pushed him forward, hurrying the team back down the corridor.
When they reached the sphere room again, Devi took a second to orient herself. Three of the four doors that accessed the sphere room were still open. One of them was the entrance to the cavern of horrors she had just escaped. The other two led to the staircase Lasren had just descended and the column room.
The door directly across from her, however—the door that led out of the chamber and back to the cavern from which they could request emergency transport and inform the fleet of all she had just learned—had closed while she was otherwise engaged by the interface that seemed to share her DNA.
Patel and her team were trapped.
VOYAGER
Acting Captain Harry Kim stared at the bridge’s main vie
wscreen trying desperately to process the information his eyes and the ship’s scanners were providing. The screen was set at its highest magnification. Centered on it was the Van Cise, the shuttle Gwyn and Seven had taken on their ill-fated journey to collect rock samples from the B star’s asteroid belt.
Only it wasn’t really a shuttle anymore.
Somehow in the five hours since Seven and Gwyn had requested emergency transport and left the shuttle at station keeping, the black, viscous substance that had attacked Gwyn had recovered from the blast of Seven’s phaser and begun to consume the shuttle.
The bow, the point farthest from the airlock in which Gwyn’s suit and the unknown matter had been sealed, was the only part of the shuttle that was still visibly intact. How long that would remain true was anyone’s guess, but likely not long.
The rest of the ship no longer held its former shape. Instead, an area roughly the size of the shuttle writhed and gyrated as the alien substance seemed to remake every section of the ship it touched. Long, whiplike tentacles shot forth randomly, striking out wildly. Despite its pitch-black coloring, the light of the binaries illuminated the spectacle, giving the matter a silver-blue tint.
“Can anybody tell me what that is or what it’s doing, apart from the obvious?” Kim asked.
Waters was the first to offer a response from ops. “It’s eating the ship, sir.”
Kim turned on her. “It’s alive?”
Waters studied her display for a few more seconds. “At this distance, our sensor readings are inconclusive, but they suggest organic and inorganic properties.”
“Making it what?” Kim asked.
“Living technology,” Waters ventured.
“How do you figure that?”
“The matter that was once the shuttle is being consumed, but as that happens, it is being transformed. It is being utilized as this thing remakes it into something else. Whatever the alien matter once was, it is no longer a discrete entity. What we are seeing is a new thing, a combination of the alien substance and our technology.”
Kim shook his head. “What the hell could do that?”
Waters shrugged. “To answer that, we need to get closer.”
The part of Kim that lived for a new scientific mystery agreed. The part of him that had command of Voyager protested vehemently.
“How close can we safely get?” Kim asked.
“The range of those tentacles is almost half a kilometer and growing longer every second. By the time we could break orbit and position ourselves to take better scans, they might be able to reach Voyager’s hull. That is assuming they continue to grow at a constant rate.”
“It’s also closing on our position, Captain,” Aubrey advised from tactical. “It is moving toward us at a speed close to one-quarter impulse.”
“Why would it do that?” Gleez asked from the helm.
“It’s had a taste of our tech and perhaps it senses that another meal is within range,” Kim replied. “Can we break orbit and get just a little closer?” he asked.
“Aye, sir,” Waters said, “but you should be advised that Patel’s away team is now half an hour overdue for their check-in, and I’ve lost my lock on their life signs.”
“When did that happen?”
“Three minutes ago, sir.”
So breaking orbit was out of the question.
Kim hated to give the order he was about to give. But under the circumstances, it was the right one. There was no way to perfectly categorize the spectacle they were witnessing, and the sensor data they had received thus far might yield more information on closer study than was possible at this moment. Should his superior officers take issue with the order, it was likely that there was more of the original substance on the asteroid where Seven and Gwyn had landed. A safer means of sampling and studying it might yet be devised. But for now, his choices were limited to one.
“Ensign Gleez, adjust our orbit to provide the widest possible angle of visibility for our targeting sensors. Lieutenant Aubrey, assuming the entity out there doesn’t alter course or speed, the moment it is within weapons’ range, target it and vaporize it. I want it reduced to its subatomic essence. I don’t want a stray atom of that matter to remain. Are we clear?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Aubrey replied.
“In the meantime, Waters, I need you to locate our lost away team.”
“Already on it, sir,” Waters replied. “It’s not like they could have gone far.”
“You have no idea how far they might have gone,” Kim snapped. “What we have already seen of this planet presents us with technological mysteries that we are nowhere near understanding, let along mastering. Assume nothing. Imagine the most ridiculous possibilities and eliminate each of them before you report any conclusions to me. Understood?”
Waters nodded, appropriately chagrined. “Aye, Captain.”
“Astrometrics to the bridge,” Seven’s voice rang out clearly over the comm.
“What is it, Seven?” Kim asked.
“Please report here immediately.”
Kim fought briefly for the strength to be courteous. When he had won that battle he replied, “We’ve got our hands full up here, Seven. Can it wait?”
“If it could, I would have sent you a report, Captain. As I haven’t, you should assume that it cannot.”
This was the job Kim wanted. Nothing in his training or eleven years of personal observation had ever suggested to Kim that it would be easy. Still, it was hard to believe that what was supposed to be a simple and restorative exploratory mission was so quickly devolving into chaos.
“Stand by, Seven,” Kim ordered. “Aubrey, estimate to weapons’ lock?”
“Twenty minutes, sir.”
Kim could be back by then. He hoped.
“Aubrey, maintain your station, but for the next few minutes, the bridge is yours.”
“Aye, Captain,” the tactical officer acknowledged.
Kim entered the astrometrics lab expecting to see the program running its ten thousandth simulation. Instead, the program appeared to be frozen. Seven stood at the data console simply observing the image before her. Stepping toward the interface station, he studied the image on the massive screen and found it eerily similar to the existing images of the system he’d been looking at off and on all day.
“I could have sworn I ordered you to get some sleep,” Kim noted.
“I simply stopped by to check the simulation’s progress on the way to my quarters,” Seven said. “To my surprise, it has yielded an unexpected result.”
Seven ordered the computer to rerun its last simulation and yawned as the program loaded. Seconds later, Kim was staring at a system with a single star orbited by six planets. As he watched, a large terrestrial body came within range of the system. It was too big to be a comet or asteroid. Its dimensions placed it closer to the category of rogue planetoid. Moments later, another body entered the system, apparently guided by the planetoid: a small star.
His jaw slack, Kim watched as the two bodies moved through the system, their presence causing catastrophic destruction of every planet present. Eventually both bodies were caught in the gravity of the star and the planetoid was destroyed while the star settled into a stable orbit.
A binary system was born, out of nearly impossible circumstances.
“That rogue planet was dragging a star behind it,” Kim said softly.
“Yes,” Seven agreed.
“Meaning it couldn’t possibly have been a planet. It had to be a ship of some sort.”
“Having just completed a survey of dozens of fragments of that planet and discovering several more unusual mineral formations, including a toxic substance that nearly ate Ensign Gwyn, I must contradict that assessment,” Seven said evenly.
“That’s impossible. It had to have propulsion, not to mention one hell of a tractor mechanism to keep hold of a star that size. I can’t even imagine the gravitational geometry required to attempt such a thing, let alone believe that it occurred na
turally.”
“I am all but certain it did not,” Seven said. “But that is not the most interesting part of this simulation.”
“What is?”
“Note the final result,” Seven suggested.
Kim tore his eyes from the binaries and studied the debris field. It was massive and in constant motion. It would take thousands of years to settle into the configuration of the current system.
Then it hit him.
“Where is DK-1116?” Kim asked.
“It’s not there,” Seven said. “None of the previous planetary bodies could have survived the transit of the planetoid or the star as they moved through the system.”
“Then where did the planet our people are currently studying come from?” Kim demanded.
“An excellent question,” Seven said.
As Kim pondered the possible answers, Seven switched the view on the screen to the last image taken by the long-range sensors of the system and its surrounding asteroid belt. A faint bleep sounded on her panel, alerting her to a new reading.
“Hmm,” Seven said.
“Hmm?” Kim asked.
“Approximately six hours ago, a faint but perceptible EM energy wave was detected from an asteroid in the outer belt. It is focused on the planet and has increased in intensity by fractional amounts every hour since it was first identified.”
“Source?”
Seven shrugged. “We need to take a closer look to confirm, but at this range, there is no sign of technology anywhere in the asteroid field.”
Kim nodded. “I think it’s time to make contact with our commanding officers.”
13
* * *
DK-1116
Unable to accept the reality now before her, Devi Patel stepped toward the sphere room’s only known exit to the surface. Placing her hand in its center, she waited for the familiar pinpricks to her palm required to activate the cavern’s entrance doors.
Nothing happened. Resisting the urge to panic, she ran both of her hands over its surface.
Again, nothing.
“Devi, what is going on?” Lasren demanded.
Architects of Infinity Page 24
