by Dave Stern
Before the other man could react, she shot him as well.
Reed stumbled backward, trying to run, to lose himself among the stones. He bumped into one of them, still disoriented, and before he could right himself, Valay had the weapon targeted on him.
“Back out here, Lieutenant. Hands high, please.”
He complied, taking a few slow steps forward.
“You seem set on a course of war, Ambassador,” Reed said. “I wish I knew why.”
“Let us just say that war suits my purposes, Lieutenant. The bloodier the better.”
“Wasn’t Dar Shalaan bloody enough for you? How many more Ta’alaat have to die—how many of your people, and mine?”
“That’s close enough,” she said. “We need to display your body prominently—right alongside Kellan’s here, I should think. That will do the trick.”
She held the weapon in textbook-correct form—a surprise to Reed, since he didn’t think firearms training was on the list of required courses in ambassadorial school.
But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to him—not after everything else that had happened.
Not after seeing Valay change settings on the phase pistol, or hearing her reel off a list of Enterprise’s weapons, tell Kellan about their upcoming rendezvous with the Shi’ar.
And it wasn’t just the things she knew that defied explanation. It was her actions—why she seemed so intent on forcing war between her people and the Ta’alaat, between her people and Starfleet. And she was going to succeed. There was nothing Reed could do to stop her. Nothing anyone could do—not Captain Archer, not any of the other Sarkassians. They would obey each and every one of her orders, without question. Just as Kellan had said.
“Here and now, Ambassador Valay speaks for our leaders. She is their voice.”
And suddenly, Reed knew why those words had struck a chord with him.
He remembered Hoshi, reading from the Vulcan database—
“They spoke as our leaders, with the voice of our leaders, in the flesh of our leaders.”
And Roan, telling him about the Anu’anshee—
“The technology involved—it often seems miraculous.”
And Phlox, talking to him in sickbay—
“Some scientists believe that the essence of personality itself is contained within this field—what makes us individuals.”
And his head cleared, just a little.
But it was enough.
Reed looked straight at Valay then, and recalled the words she’d spoken, about traitors, and reinforcements, and jamming beams, and realized they were all lies. It was all a role she was playing. The title, the robes, the words, the smile ...
The body itself.
“Goridian,” he said.
Light danced in her eyes, and she smiled.
Twenty-Four
SARKASSIAN OUTPOST
1/17/2151 1341 HOURS
GORIDIAN HERE, in Valay’s body.
Goridian aboard Enterprise, in Alana’s.
Everything that a moment ago had been a whirl of confusion suddenly fell into place. Roan’s murder, the attack in the brig, Alana’s transformation—
“It wasn’t amnesia,” Reed said. “It wasn’t her who tried to fire on the Sarkassians—it was you. You put your mind ... inside her, somehow.”
The words sounded ridiculous as he said them. The ambassador’s smile twisted into a frown, and for a split second, he doubted his reasoning.
Then Valay smiled again, broader this time.
And Reed knew he was right.
He stepped forward, the uncertainty he’d felt a moment before now gone entirely. All that was left was a core of anger—burning bright inside him.
Valay raised her weapon.
“Stay right where you are, Lieutenant.”
Reed forced himself to stop.
“Tell me how you did it. What you did to the ambassador—to Alana ...”
“As you guessed. I took their places.”
“But how?”
“The machines, of course. The Anu’anshee.”
Reed didn’t understand. “What machines?”
Valay took a step backward, still holding the phase pistol on him. And then she swiftly—expertly—switched weapons again, so that she was holding Kellan’s in her right hand.
“Wouldn’t do to shoot you with your own weapon, would it?” she said by way of explanation. “That would hardly prove compelling evidence of Earth’s involvement in this affair to the Sarkassian Council.”
Reed understood her plan now. His plan—he had to stop thinking of the person before him as Ambassador Valay. It was Goridian—and his goal was the same as it had been before, back aboard Enterprise.
“You want a war.”
“That’s right.”
She raised the pistol again.
Valay, Goridian, whoever he thought of her as, she handled the gun like an expert. She stayed just far enough away from him that any attempt on his part to wrest it away from her would have failed.
“You’re being foolish, Goridian. Stop and think for a second. War between Starfleet and the Sarkassians? That’s not going to be some penny-ante struggle carried out with hand weapons and hidden explosives. It’s going to be starship against starship. Thousands of people are likely to die. And do you know what? Bigger and better weapons are going to built—by us and the Sarkassians. Surely some of those will be used on your people.”
“You forget who I am now, Lieutenant. I am a regent of the Empire. I will help direct the course of this war. Of course, my advice may seem puzzling at times to the Sarkassians, but they will understand my reasons—eventually.” She smiled. “I suspect it will be a cathartic moment.”
Reeds hand flexed unconsciously. He yearned for a weapon of his own—his phase pistol, or a knife, something, anything. He wanted Goridian to make a mistake, to come closer, for his attention to wander.
He needed more time to make something happen. “Tell me how the machines work,” he said.
“I think not. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. I don’t want any of the other Sarkassians coming to investigate—I’d have to shoot them as well, and the last thing I want to do is to have to explain another death. Three fatalities measured against yours and Roan’s is believable—a very capable Starfleet officer, I will assure the Council. No stain upon the honor of the soldiers who died facing him. Any more, and the story will begin to strain the bonds of credulity.”
She raised the particle weapon again.
“Goodbye, Lieutenant,” she said. “I suspect your consciousness will not survive the next few seconds.”
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
And then she paused, and lowered the gun.
“Your consciousness,” she repeated, and a smile crossed her face. “I believe I will make a slight change in my plans.”
She marched Reed over to one of the stones—the very one, it seemed to him, closest to where he’d first found Alana.
“What are you doing?” Reed asked.
“As I said, a slight change in plans. I’ve decided I will be far more useful to my government in the role of Lieutenant Malcolm Reed than Ambassador Valay Shuma.” She smiled again. “You wanted to know how these worked? I’ll show you.”
Again making sure to stay just beyond his reach, keeping the particle weapon trained directly on him, she ran her free hand across the symbols covering the stone’s surface in an apparently random order.
The stone began to glow, ever so slightly.
And before he could react, Reed felt himself snap backward, in the grip of some force he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and slam up against the stone, his back stuck to it as if he’d been glued there.
He couldn’t move. Not his feet, not his head, not his hands. He opened his mouth to speak, and found even that difficult.
“What the hell—”
“Consciousness transfer, Lieutenant,” she said. “The Sarkassian scientists who found these stones thoug
ht they might have had other functions as well, but—I paid little attention to their speculations, to be honest. Once I realized how I could use these to infiltrate their empire.”
Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
“You sent the distress call.”
“That’s right. I thought the Sarkassians would come charging in, Roan at the front of the pack. I set a trap for him. But instead”—she shrugged—“I caught your ensign.”
The image he had seen earlier—Goridian appearing from behind one of the stones, and walking toward Alana—flashed through his mind again.
And suddenly he recalled an earlier memory.
And now he knew it for what it was.
The memory of what had happened when she had been surprised by Goridian. Held against the stone just as he was now.
But how was it that he could recall that moment? He hadn’t been there, Alana had never said anything about it to him.
All at once, he felt the stone behind him growing warm.
The air, suddenly, smelled of electricity.
Valay took a step forward.
“I’d tell you this won’t hurt,” she said, “but I have no idea what it will feel like.”
“Wait,” Reed said. “What happens to me?”
“To you?”
“To my consciousness.”
“Not my concern,” she said. “Though from my reading of the scientists’ notes, I expect that you die.”
She reached out and touched his forehead, and the world went black.
Twenty-Five
SARKASSIAN OUTPOST
1/17/2151 1411 HOURS
MEMORIES RUSHED PAST, and rose up around him again.
His memories. And Alana’s.
He was her, frozen in place, back pinned against the stone. Watching the alien walk toward her, hand outstretched. His fingertips brushed her brow—
And every inch of her being was suddenly on fire, screaming in agony.
The alien was there, inside her.
Two consciousnesses, two personalities, struggling for control of one body. The battle was furious, intense.
Alana lost the war, and went spinning off into the void.
* * *
Darkness surrounded her. She had no arms, no legs, no sense of sight, or smell, or touch, no way to communicate. It was like being in the isolation tank, back at the Academy. Part of their training for emergency evac conditions—no power, no lights, no way of telling whether or not time was passing. Totally disconnected from her environment—just like now.
But aware. And with that thought came the realization that she was alive.
Alive, and a prisoner. Trapped within her own body.
Time passed—how much, she had no way of knowing.
Occasionally, flashes of the world outside came through to her. The sound of a word, the smell of food, the ghosted image of a person, a room aboard Enterprise.
She could also—sometimes—sense the thoughts of the alien who had taken over her body. He was masquerading as her, taking her place among the crew.
The thought gave her renewed agony. But she couldn’t do anything about it.
Helpless, she lost herself in the memories that were all she had left, and drifted away.
All at once, the world blossomed into light before her.
She was lying on the armory floor. Malcolm was on his hands and knees before her, staring at her in shock and confusion, his outstretched hand touching hers. Blood trickled down his forehead.
In that split second she was aware of two things:
The alien who had occupied her body was gone.
And she couldn’t breathe.
She tried inhaling through her nose, then opening her mouth, and failed at both. Failed even to move a muscle, as if the electrical impulses from her brain were not reaching her limbs. As if there was a short-circuit somewhere.
The alien, she realized. He’d done something to her body.
She looked up at Malcolm. Help, she tried to say, and though her mouth didn’t move, she could sense him, somehow, respond—as if his consciousness were somehow hearing her.
Their hands were touching.
She willed herself—
Into him.
A wave of memories overwhelmed her, moments the two of them had shared.
She saw herself in the armory, on New Year’s Eve, as Malcolm confronted her for an explanation of the Dinai incident, and then they were—
In her quarters, as he pulled the Corbett from on her shelf, and turned to her with a smile on his face and they were—
Back in the armory, standing an arm’s length apart, and then they were kissing, and suddenly she was aware that she was seeing herself through his eyes, and that the memories she was reliving were not just hers, they were his too, that the two of them were together.
Two consciousnesses, sharing one body.
His in control, still—but hers there. Drifting on the edge of his awareness.
Hesitantly at first, and then with more urgency, she began to try to communicate with him.
Reed could hear her clearly now.
And as he listened, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.
The hallucinatory intensity of his memories, why he’d been so preoccupied with the past these last few days—why every place he turned, everywhere he looked, seemed to remind him of Alana.
She had been with him this whole time, ever since they’d touched back in the armory.
Alana was alive.
He felt himself—his consciousness—reach out for hers, and ...
They stood facing each other, on a flat, featureless plain that seemed to stretch out to eternity in all directions.
“It’s you,” Reed said hesitantly, taking a step forward. “My God, it’s really you.”
Her next words were like ice water on his face.
“No,” she said. “It’s not me at all. None of this”—she waved her hands around—“is real.”
Of course she was right, Reed realized instantly. This was an illusion, created in their heads. His head. A meeting of the minds.
“That’s right,” she said. “Reality is out there—Goridian, a split second away from touching you. From invading your body, and taking control.”
“We’ll stop him—together,” Reed said. “Two against one.”
She shook her head. “No. He’s too strong.”
“Then how—”
He read her thoughts then, and his heart sank.
“No,” he said, and then louder, “No!”
“It’s the only way, Malcolm.” She smiled sadly, and took a step back.
He reached out for her, and the plain around them vanished.
“Remember me.”
Her consciousness brushed against his, then.
A last, parting touch—the echo of a kiss.
Light flooded his senses, and the world returned.
He was back in the pyramid. No time had passed.
Valay’s hand was still pressed against his forehead. She still wore the same smile.
Then she screamed in agony, and fell to the ground. Seizing just the way Alana had, what seemed like ages ago, when he’d first come across her on the planet’s surface.
Reed knew now what those seizures had represented—Goridian struggling for control of her body. Just the way these seizures represented Alana—her consciousness, struggling to keep Goridian from leaving Valay’s body, and taking control of Reed.
Somehow—Anu’anshee technology, of course, though the details were beyond him—once Goridian had used the machine, his consciousness was free to wander at will. That was how he’d gotten back to his own body after Alana’s “death” in the armory, how he’d taken over Valay in the cell. He didn’t really need the machines at all anymore, had probably just intended to use it to keep Reed immobile long enough to transfer into his body.
But what was true for Goridian was true for Alana as well now. She could jump from body to body at wi
ll, as she had when she and Reed touched back in sickbay.
Reed felt the force holding him to the stone loosen, and he struggled free of it.
He bent down and picked up the particle weapon from the ground.
Valay—Valay’s body—was still seizing. The two minds—Alana’s and Goridian’s—struggling for control. Reed reached for the ambassador, intending to do something, what he wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t let Alana fight alone against—
The seizures stopped, and Valay lay on the ground a moment, not moving.
Then she rose to her feet.
Hoping against hope, Reed looked in her eyes.
They were pinpricks of black. Cold, and unfeeling.
Goridian.
He raised the particle weapon.
“You can’t,” Valay—Goridian—said. “She’s still in here, you know. Alive.”
“I know,” Reed said. Alana had known too—what would happen. What he would have to do.
“Good-bye,” he said. “That’s for her, you bastard. Not you.”
Valay’s mouth opened in surprise.
Reed gritted his teeth, and fired.
Epilogue
CAPTAIN’S READY ROOM
1/18/2151 1445 HOURS
“MESSAGE BEGINS. Captain Jonathan Archer of the Starship Enterprise to Nicole and Jonathan Hart, Lake Armstrong, Luna. Mr. and Ms. Hart, by now you’ve received notification from Starfleet about your daughter’s death. I want you to know you have my condolences, and the condolences of everyone aboard this ship who served with Alana. She was a special person, and she will be missed. And I can tell you that what she did will not be forgotten—her actions helped prevent a war that could have cost untold lives.”
Archer steepled his hands together on the desk in front of him, and took a breath. No uncertainty about what to say this time—though Archer thought it best to leave the circumstances of Hart’s passing deliberately vague. Not because he doubted what had happened, but because to anyone who hadn’t been here, hadn’t seen the strange events of the last few days unfold before their own eyes, it all sounded more than a little preposterous. Supernatural, perhaps.
