by Ilsa J. Bick
Dax looked triumphant. “What’s happening now is precisely what’s been prophesized: that the One will reach out and then His Temple will be reborn. Well, now we’ve got a window, a quantum fracture into a realm of space through which energy and information can be transferred. Think about it a second. We know that Bynars always come in pairs. Always. But now 110 has found his match, a twin. How is that possible? Singletons are incapable of meshing. They’re unfit to do so. But this energy signature can, and he calls himself Solo-Man.” She paused, her darkly brown eyes clicking over their faces. “Don’t you understand? Solo-Man. One Man. The One.”
“No, no,” said 111. “There is Soloman, and then there is this other. He is a,” she cocked her head an instant, chittered in dataspeak and said, “Ferengi.”
“What are those?” asked Gold.
Another pause. “He says it would take too long to explain. There are, it seems, many rules applying to acquisition. He says that we must shut down this device; that the search program has activated the computer on their side of the datastream on their…” 111’s eyes were huge. “On Empok Nor. He says that temporal-distortion waves are destroying the fabric of space-time.”
“What?” said Kane. “Empok Nor?”
“Are you sure it isn’t Terok Nor?” said Jadzia. She dropped to her haunches now, laid her hands on the Bynar’s shoulders. “Ask the Prophet if this Empok Nor is anywhere near—”
“It is not a Prophet,” said 111. She raised her bright blue eyes to Gold. “This Soloman—the Ferengi says he lost his bondmate.” Her voice quavered. Broke. “He says I died there.”
Gold took the Bynar’s left hand. Her fingers were cold, and they trembled. “111, does this—this Ferengi say why Soloman is there in the first place?”
“No. But I sense Soloman—waits.”
“For what?”
“I do not believe he knows, but there is a void in him.” She pressed a bunched fist to her chest. “But I cannot fill it. Much as I wish to help, I have my bondmate here.” The look she gave Gold was full of anguish. “I want 110 back, whole, and yet I feel such sorrow for this other. I do not know how he has managed to live.”
“I suppose he just went on.” Gold had to pause, clear his throat. “People do that.”
“Perhaps. But when love is gone,” 111 said as a tear inched down either cheek, “there is always emptiness because the heart knows what has been lost.”
“Yes,” said Gold. His eyes burned. “Yes, it does.”
“Well?” asked Gomez.
Nog shook his head. “I know I got the message through; 111’s code changed to assimilate it.”
“And Soloman?”
“He’s there, but it’s like he’s…locked in tight somehow. And I…” Nog trailed off, squinted at his data.
Gomez waited an anxious few seconds. “What?”
Nog began toggling in data. “I am so stupid. I know why Soloman can’t break free. You know how Betazoids have a paracortex that enhances their telepathic capabilities, and how Betazoid women have elevated levels of neurochemicals that further augment these abilities? Look at Soloman’s psilosynine level. It’s through the roof. That’s what’s happening with Soloman. The Bynars in that universe? They’re telepaths.”
Gomez gaped. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. It’s a logical extension, you ask me. What do the Bynars do? They interconnect with computer code. It all comes down to discharges along the electromagnetic spectrum. The brain works the same way. All neurons rely upon electrical potentials, whether neurochemically or electrically mediated. So it’s not so unbelievable that the Bynars of that universe also possess some form of telepathy and that some machines only respond to telepaths.”
“Okay,” said Gomez. “So what are they looking for?”
There was astonishment on Dax’s face, and Gold saw Gomez and Duffy glance at each other.
Then Gomez said, “Do we tell them?” She seemed unaware that she’d sidled closer to Duffy. “Maybe they can help.”
Gold gave 111’s hand a squeeze, then pushed to his feet. “I’m not sure if I’m relieved it’s not a Prophet. Another us? What makes them think they can help? We have no way of knowing if our two universes are compatible in any way.”
“Well, sir,” Duffy interrupted. He glanced at Sonya and then back at Gold. “Now that you mention it…”
“I just thought of something, a way to get Soloman out of there,” said Gomez. “You just said that Betazoids and other telepaths have high levels of psilosynine in their brains, right?”
“Yeah,” said Nog. “So?”
“So why not give Soloman a broad-range neural suppressant? Just…take him offline that way.”
“But that will make him incapable of communing with Empok Nor’s computer. Then we’ll be stuck,” said Nog.
“We’re stuck either way,” said Conlon. “Right now, we can talk to them but that’s all. We can’t control what’s happening here or there, and Soloman either can’t or won’t deactivate the system. Probably it’s the latter because they’re the ones who are looking for something, not us. Either they find it, or they don’t. Unless they shut down on their end, it won’t matter.”
It was her decision; Gomez knew it. “We give them a couple more minutes. Let’s see what they say.”
When Duffy finished, Gold looked from Duffy to Gomez, who’d gone very white. To Jadzia. Salek returned his stare then said, “That would seem to answer the question.”
“Yes, it does. And it means they’re probably telling the truth. That machine’s ripping their universe apart.” Gold tapped his combadge. “Feliciano, contact Captain Kira. Beam her directly to sickbay. Tell her I’ll explain when she’s aboard.”
Then Gold put a gentle hand on 111’s shoulder. “When Captain Kira gets here, this is what I want you to ask.”
“The Prophets? The wormhole?” asked Gomez. “That’s what this is about?”
“That’s what they say,” said Nog. “Seems they don’t have one, and they thought this device would help them find it.”
“It has, in a weird sort of way,” Gomez mused. “I mean, it reached out and found this version of Bajoran space. Maybe we’re the only universe with a wormhole.”
“Well, I’m not sure we should tell them,” said Conlon.
“What harm would it do?” asked Hawkins.
“You ever hear of the Prime Directive?”
Gomez raised a hand. “Wait a sec, let’s think this through. This whole thing started when they activated that device—111 says that they think the Hebitians left it as a beacon of some sort. Whoever can access it supposedly can use it to find the wormhole. Well, what if they’re right? First, you access micro-black holes; you establish a coherent datastream to a parallel realm, or you find the region of space most vulnerable to gravimetric inversion.”
“In theory,” said Conlon. “Okay. But if we give them the coordinates and then we, I dunno, disconnect Soloman, how do we know we’ve picked the right side?”
“You ever hear of Pandora’s box?” asked Gomez. “Well, it’s open. They know we’re here. We know what they’re looking for. From what it sounds like, they’re running out of time. What incentive do they have to turn the thing off?”
“None.”
“Right. If they don’t stop, things don’t get better here. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.” Gomez looked at them all in turn. “We tell them.”
“Once you tell them, you can’t take it back,” said Conlon.
“I know that.” Gomez looked over at Nog. “Do it.”
“The Denorios Belt?” Kira frowned. “No one goes there. It’s a mess: high-energy plasma, neutrino storms, tachyon bursts. I’ve always assumed a wormhole would have to be in a stable, less kinetically energetic region of space. Best place for that is a black hole.”
“Well, guess again,” said Kane.
“But maybe that’s the point, Captain,” said Gomez. “The Denorios Belt we know about is pretty hot, right? Th
ink about it. The Remans use a quantum singularity for their warp drive. To do that, they fuse material and create energy. In theory, you concentrate enough mass and energy you create the conditions for a wormhole by deforming space-time sufficiently to open it. Think of it as breaking down a gated door. The wormhole is there but closed off.”
“You mean, input enough energy to bind all that plasma together, or maybe just a sizable chunk?” Duffy stroked the side of his chin with his thumb. “Well, theoretically, we could do it.”
“How?” asked Gold and Kira at the same time.
“We generate a massive pulse of combined anti-chroniton and tetryon particles, then follow with a spread of photon torpedoes. The release of that much energy ought to be siphoned off by the denser tetryons, resulting in a collapse of matter into a highly compressed, dense mass and concomitant release of SEM gamma rays.”
Kane rolled her eyes. “What the hell did that mean?”
“It means we can do it,” said Gold. “Except there are only a couple problems.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One, all that plasma, we’ll be lucky we don’t go up with it. Second, we don’t know if this isn’t what the Androssi want us to do.”
“Why would they allow us to steal a device that would tell us the location of a wormhole and not keep it for themselves?” asked Dax. She looked to be spoiling for another fight. “Clearly—”
“Clearly, because they don’t want to get themselves blown to smithereens for no good reason,” said Gold. “Ever think of that? We sure as hell know that the Cardassians aren’t telepathic, and maybe the Androssi aren’t either. So they needed us—specifically, they needed the Bynars—to find it for them.” He looked at Kira. “I told you: Taking this thing was too easy.”
Kira searched his face. “You think they’re waiting to ambush us.”
“They’ll want all the glory. That’s what this is about. They know that if the religious sect delivers the wormhole, the treaty has no chance of being ratified. But if the Cardassians find the wormhole, then the religious sect drops their objections. So how I think it goes down is like this. We find the wormhole; we open it, or we start to—or maybe the Cardassians and Androssi have their own plans for how to open it, I don’t know—and then we get blown into subatomic particles. The Cardassians won’t want anyone slipping away, or getting a transmission out to contradict their story.”
“There’s another problem, Captain,” said Gomez. The color had drained from her face; her skin was white as bone china. “Even if we survive the initial explosion, the shock waves might rip the ship apart.”
“And if we somehow managed to live through that, there’s going to be a lot of gamma radiation out there, enough to penetrate shields in a matter of minutes,” said Duffy. “No matter how you cut it, it’s a suicide mission.”
“Some things are worth dying for,” said Dax.
“Yeah,” said Gold, and his eyes slid to Kira in a side-long glance. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
Kira returned the look. “The Denorios Belt is far enough from Bajor and Terok Nor that it would take the Cardassians or the Androssi several minutes to reach us.”
“Assuming they aren’t waiting for us. Assuming there aren’t patrols.”
“Okay, then,” Kira said. “We wouldn’t have much time. One of us would have to discharge the pulse while the other fends off whoever comes after us. But it can be done.”
“Care to lay odds on that?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” Gold planted his fists on his hips. He sighed. “Man, oh, man, this just keeps getting better and better.”
“In truth, we’d need another ship to have a real shot at this,” said Kira. “But there’s no one close enough.”
“Well,” said Gold. “That’s not entirely accurate.”
“Will they do it?” asked Conlon.
“I don’t know,” said Nog.
“They have the information they wanted. They’ll have to decide how to use it, but that’s not our fight. My guess, though, is they’re committed now,” said Gomez. She palmed a small hypospray in her right hand, knelt, pressed the tip to Soloman’s suit along his forearm, thumbed the hypospray to life and then settled back on her haunches to wait. “And so are we.”
They’d forgotten all about the Bynar, and so it was a shock when 111 raised her voice in a keening wail.
It was Gold who reacted first. Kneeling beside the Bynar, he covered her tiny hands with one of his. The sight of her tears touched his heart with pain and an ancient grief that was somehow always fresh, like a wound that never healed. “111?” he asked, gently.
“He is gone, Captain,” she said. Then she turned, buried her face in Gold’s chest and wept like a small child. “He is gone.”
Gold didn’t have to look for 110’s life-signs on the biobed monitors because he knew, instinctively, which “he” she meant. “Is he dead?”
“No, but he is…one again. They have chosen for him. But how will he live, Captain?” 111 said. “How can he?”
Gold swallowed against the lump in his throat, and then he motioned for Kane to deactivate the ancient device. They had what they needed—and he knew what he, and only he, must do.
They have chosen for him.
“Because he will,” Gold said. “He’ll just have to.”
Chapter
10
Tugging on the tails of his lavishly embroidered tunic, Gul Garak activated his holomirror and twisted this way and that, admiring the view. The cut of the tunic was exquisite; the fabric shot through with latinum thread and encrusted with living gemstones: a little-known treasure found in ancient Hebitian tombs. As he watched, the gemstones splayed delicate, lacy fingers, bleeding color along the fabric the way a spider spins a web.
“I’m happy,” Garak said, and he was exceedingly pleased when the gemstones responded and colored to amber. Then he imagined his Bajoran comfort woman slowly unfastening her sheer, gauzy tunic at its right shoulder and the look of the tunic slithering over the points of her breasts to the swell of her hips…and watched as the gemstones shaded to a deep blood-red so vibrant it seemed to pulsate.
So that is the color of arousal. Very nice. But I wonder what shade they will turn when that treaty is signed? He glanced at a chronometer. Well, only a few hours left until I find out.
His intercom clamored for his attention. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Zotat has reported in, Gul Garak.”
“And?”
“There are two vessels headed for the Denorios Belt—and, sir, one is the Gettysburg.”
“Very well. Tell Zotat to contact me the moment that he either determines the coordinates of the wormhole, or the wormhole has opened and been secured.” Then Garak thought of something. “And, Lieutenant, relay this: Zotat may do as he wishes with the other vessel. It is of no consequence. But tell him that I want the Gettysburg.” Garak looked into his mirror, and his reflection gave him a dark and malevolent grin. “Yes, tell Zotat: I want Gold.”
Clicking off, Garak then stepped back to admire his reflection—and the color of victory.
“There it is,” said Wong. If he was anxious, his voice didn’t betray it. “Six thousand meters dead ahead. The Denorios Belt, sir.”
“Slow to one-quarter impulse. McAllan, Cardassians?”
“None detected, sir.”
“What about Androssi?” Privately, Gold didn’t believe that Garak would let the Androssi in on the kill. The Cardassians would want all the credit. The Androssi were simply their go-tos.
McAllan took another second to double-check, then said, “Negative. It would seem the belt is unguarded, Captain.”
“Like Kira said, it’s a lot of space. But they’re going to come running in a hurry.” Gold balanced on the balls of his feet, too keyed up to sit in his command chair. “Salek, what’s your status up there?”
“All nonessential personnel have moved from the outer hull, Captain. Escape pods are prepped. Shuttlecraft Te
mplar is standing by. We are ready to proceed at your command.”
“Good. Haznedl, raise the Li.”
“On audio, sir.”
“Kira, this is Gold. You ready?”
Her voice was steady and betrayed nothing.
“Ready as we’re ever going to be. This is one risky plan, David.”
“I could say something apropos like risk is our business.”
“Please, don’t. What about my chief engineer?”
“We’ll get him back to you.”
“Then, as they say on Earth, bring it on.”
“You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that.” Gold gave a short nod then tapped his combadge. “Engineering, Gomez. How are you and Duffy doing?”
“We’re just about there, Captain. We’ve had to reroute power from the backup phaser generators through the deflector grid. I’ve tied in an emergency relay from the shields just in case.”
“Our shields? You’re telling me that it might come down to a choice between that deflector, and shields?”
“No choice, sir. We’re talking one big pulse.”
“How much time to charge the deflector?”
“Once we’re in position, about sixty seconds.”
“A lot can happen in sixty seconds.”
“Best we can do, Captain. We’ve got another problem, though. Our last run-in damaged our torpedo launchers. I had to reroute the launch assist generators, but it’s jury-rigged. It won’t hold up for long.”
“They may not have to. Do what you can. Haznedl, signal the Li. Feliciano, when Duffy’s ready, beam him back aboard the Li.” Gold pulled in a breath. “All right, people, this is it.”
“Almost there,” said Duffy. His hair was mussed; he was covered in grime and there were crescents of dirt under his nails; and he was sweating so much his tunic was glued to his back. They’d been working at breakneck speed and barely had time to exchange two paragraphs that didn’t contain the words containment field, magnetic oscillation, and anti-chronitonic stream.
