by Jeffrey Lang
“There is a reference to Vaslovik in one of Dr. Soong's earliest journals,” Data explained. “Some of the substructures I saw in the holotronic android reminded me of references to my creator's earliest experiments. He had ideas for systems—particularly emotion emulation and information absorption subroutines—that he was never able to successfully develop.”
“But you saw them in Maddox's android?” Picard asked.
“Yes, sir. When I checked Dr. Soong's journals, I found references to a ‘Professor V.’ After reviewing these entries, I have no doubt that he was speaking of Vaslovik. Apparently, my father met him at a seminar when he was an undergraduate. They must have exchanged ideas concerning artificial intelligence at that time.”
“Why didn't you check for this earlier, Data?” Haftel asked.
Data raised an eyebrow, seemingly caught off guard by the question. “My apologies, Admiral, but my storage systems have not been designed in such a manner that I have simultaneous access to every one of my files. I periodically archive files based on an algorithm that examines—”
Picard waved his hand for Data to stop. “It's all right, Data. I think the admiral understands. If your information is correct, it could answer a great many questions.”
“Such as,” Geordi inserted, “how Vaslovik was able to use the trapdoor. If he was working at the DIT seventy years ago, he could have inserted the code easily enough.”
“All right,” Haftel said. “That makes sense, but it doesn't address the most important question: motivation. Why would Vaslovik want to steal the android? And if he's still alive, what has he done with it?”
“I cannot be certain about this, Admiral,” Data admitted, “but I have begun to form a theory. The only way we can test it is to continue the investigation. Lieutenant McAdams and I have decided our next step should be to search Professor Vaslovik's home and ‘toss the joint.’ ”
Everyone regarded Data quizzically, except for Picard, who was slowly rubbing his forehead and staring at the tabletop.
“Have I mishandled the slang, Captain?”
“No, Data. It's just . . . cultural illiteracy. No offense, Admiral.”
“None taken, Captain.”
“Mr. Data,” Picard said, “assemble an away team. I want you there too, Number One.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Dismissed,” Picard said.
Riker looked at Data and McAdams. “Transporter Room Three in ten minutes?”
Data nodded, and as everyone started to file out, Data turned to Barclay. “Would you join us as well, Lieutenant?”
Obviously still reeling from the day's revelations, Barclay nodded. “Absolutely, Commander.”
Data found Rhea holding the turbolift for him. “Going my way?” she asked as he entered.
“I am going to Transporter Room Three. Is that not where you were going, too?”
“Well, yes. But the question wasn't meant to be taken literally. Transporter Room Three,” she told the lift.
As their descent began, Data was still struggling to understand how else he should have taken the question. “I am confused,” he said.
Rhea massaged the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Never mind,” she said. “Are we going to have this conversation often?”
“Since I am not certain what ‘this conversation’ is,” Data replied, “then my answer would have to be . . . yes?”
Rhea did not reply for the time it took for the turbolift to drop several floors, then chuckled softly. “Okay, point taken. I was just trying to lighten the mood. You seemed . . . tense.”
“I did?” Data asked, fascinated. “How do I act when I seem tense?”
Rhea didn't respond immediately, then rolled her eyes. “All right,” she admitted. “I'm tense. You caught me off guard in there when you started talking about Vaslovik. I thought we were going to check that out some more. I'm sorry . . . I'm not really very good with conflict.”
Data replied,
“But you are the head of security.” “Different kind of conflict,” Rhea said.
“Oh,” Data said, not completely understanding. “But are we not now going to investigate it? We are going to his home—”
“I meant check it out some more before talking to the captain.”
Data felt abashed. “I . . . I did not understand that,” he said. “Chief O'Neil's report seemed to me to be the confirmation we were looking for,” he said cautiously.
“I suppose,” McAdams said irritably, then rubbed the bridge of her nose again. “I'm sorry. I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep.”
“I will make a note of that,” Data said cautiously. When McAdams didn't respond, he asked tentatively, “Does this disagreement mean that you have lost faith in me?”
Rhea looked up and saw that worry lines had appeared around the corners of Data's eyes. She reached up and smoothed the lines with her fingertips. “No, not that,” she said. “Never that.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE AWAY TEAM MATERIALIZED on the wide lawn beside a small A-frame building, rather unremarkable as private dwellings went. Looking up and down the narrow road, Riker noted that there were no other residences nearby, the closest being what looked like a small cabin on a hilltop almost 500 meters up the road, barely discernible through a stand of trees. He asked Barclay, “Have you been in this neighborhood before?”
Barclay nodded. “This is the Hollows, a couple of hundred kilometers north of the Institute. Most of the people who live out this far are longtime residents—staff members, technical staff, clerical workers. We, uh, transients, tend to live closer to campus.”
McAdams consulted the address code near the entryway. “This is the right house, though.” It was an old-fashioned structure with wide, deep windows and slate tiles on the roof. There were two cane rocking chairs on the porch, both in need of paint, with a low table between them. There was an air of quaint shabbiness about the place and though they approached cautiously, tricorders humming, Riker found it hard to imagine a less threatening structure.
Which, naturally, made him feel that much more on edge. “Rustic,” he said, then made a pass with the tricorder. “Nobody's home,” he reported. “No defense systems, no surveillance equipment. In fact, I'm not reading any unusual EM signatures at all. Let's go knock.”
Data was puzzled. “But you said no one was home.”
“Just being polite, Data. One should always knock before one is about to ‘toss a joint.’ ”
To no one's surprise, the door was unlocked. Vaslovik's home was scrupulously tidy. The team proceeded slowly from room to room, cautiously taking readings, making observations. Judging by the lack of household gadgetry, he appeared to cook his own meals, wash his own dishes and sweep his own floors. A small private library of leather-bound books contained a wide range of literature and historical nonfiction. In the living room, McAdams paused to look through some padds lying on a coffee table, but reported there was nothing noteworthy on them: technical and scientific publications, some general arts and humanities articles, current events downloads. “Eclectic reader,” she commented.
“No one's been here for several days,” Riker observed flatly. “Maybe longer.”
“I agree,” Barclay said, reviewing his tricorder readings.
“I don't see anything that makes me very suspicious,” Rhea said. “He lived modestly, even spartanly, but this isn't the home of a transient.” She picked up a small, intricately dyed ceramic dish and considered it appreciatively. “He didn't own many things, but he knew quality when he saw it.”
“What would make you feel suspicious?” Riker asked.
“I don't know,” McAdams replied. “What does a master criminal's country home feel like? Maybe I was expecting something that looked better, but felt worse.”
The three of them looked for Data and found him standing outside the library, alternately waving his tricorder toward and then away from the entrance. “Something wrong, Data?”
Data poi
nted the tricorder away from the library, holding it so Riker could see the display. “Please continue to watch the display and tell me if you see anything anomalous.”
Riker kept his eyes on the tricorder as Data panned it in a slow arc toward the library. When he finished, Riker looked up. “Can't say I did. Are you picking up something that we can't?”
“It is very peculiar, Commander,” he said. “When the tricorder scan moves from any direction toward the library, the display flickers for approximately six milliseconds, much too quickly for human eyes to detect.”
“But not for yours?”
“Evidently not. It is as if something in the room is overriding the tricorder's sensors, giving it specific readings in order to mask something else. Please wait here.” Riker, McAdams and Barclay watched from the doorway as Data made some adjustments to his tricorder and scoured every surface of the library. Unsurprisingly, he eventually stopped in front of a book. Data closed his tricordor and picked up the book, a small volume of poetry. Data opened it, and sure enough, within a frame of false pages, a small flat device was blinking in operation. Data found an “off” switch, and the surface of a small table in the center of the room shimmered and revealed a Federation-standard interface console.
“Oh, my.” This from Barclay, who was staring in shock at his tricorder. “Th-this room is a transporter.”
“Which part of it?” McAdams asked.
“The whole room!” Barclay said. “The walls are lined with molecular imaging scanners, pattern buffers, phase transition coils—”
Riker whistled appreciatively as they joined Data in the room. “Curiouser and curiouser.” He turned to McAdams. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”
“That this is the front door to his real house?” McAdams asked.
“Something like that.”
Data had been studying the tabletop console. “The device is limited in function. Unlike most transporters, this one is apparently designed to transmit matter to single location only.”
“Where?” Riker asked.
“Unknown. Since it cannot be programmed for other locations, there is no coordinate system in place to make that determination. However, it does suggest that the location and distance of the other terminus is constant relative to this one.”
“So it definitely goes somewhere on the planet, and not to a nearby vessel,” McAdams concluded.
“So it would seem,” Data agreed.
McAdams looked at Riker. “I suppose you want to knock?”
Riker grinned. “Why, Lieutenant, you can read my mind.”
“S-sir, is that really s-such a good idea?” Barclay stammered.
“Lieutenant Barclay may have a point, sir,” Data said. “We do not know what may be facing us on the other side. I recommend we contact the Enterprise and request they send a probe—”
Data never completed his recommendation. Without warning, the transporter came on, the dematerialization effect enveloping and immobilizing the members of the away team before they could react.
They rematerialized in the middle of one of the most sophisticated and apparently deserted laboratories Riker had ever seen.
“Phasers,” Riker ordered, and the away team immediately moved into a defensive position, each facing a different direction with weapons drawn. “Data, what the hell happened?”
Data drew out his tricorder with his free hand and expertly opened it. “I am not sure, sir. One of us may have inadvertently tripped a sensor that activated a retrieval mechanism.”
“Or somebody on this end beamed us here,” McAdams said, her eyes scanning her surroundings alertly.
“My tricorder is detecting no life signs other than our own,” Data reported.
“All right,” Riker said. “Just the same, everyone be alert. And stay together. Where exactly are we, Data?” The lab seemed to curve away from them in both directions.
Data completed his scan and gave his report. “We are approximately thirty-four hundred kilometers southeast of our previous location,” he said, “and one hundred fifty meters beneath the floor of Galor IV's largest ocean.”
“You did say the floor, didn't you?” Barclay asked nervously. “Not the surface?”
“Correct. This facility is subterranean. It is a circular arrangement of rooms surrounding a large, dome-shaped space approximately seventy-five meters in diameter, perhaps a spacecraft bay.” Riker noticed the inner wall of the lab was dominated by a continuous row of dark glass. Viewports? “The dome opens at the top into a wide shaft leading up to the ocean floor. A force field is holding back the ocean. Extraordinary.”
Barclay was looking around in amazement. “Professor, what have you been up to?”
“Can you imagine the resources it took to build something like this?” Riker said. “And in secret?”
“Apparently there is far more to Professor Vaslovik than even I suspected, Commander,” Data admitted.
Riker tried his combadge. “Riker to Enterprise. Riker to Enterprise.” When no answer came, he looked at the others. “Can any of you get through?” When no one could, Riker asked Data, “Can we beam back?”
“I am not sure. I do not see anything that would suggest a transporter control interface.”
“Dammit,” Riker muttered. Investigating unknown territory didn't bother him; not having a choice in the matter did. “All right, let's see what we can find. Data, you take point. McAdams, you cover our backs. Everyone keep an eye out for a communications console or transporter controls.”
“Here's something,” McAdams said, touching a hand-size panel just below the wall of dark glass. A section of the viewports immediately lightened to transparency, revealing the empty spaceship bay Data had described, and beyond it, the dark stripe of viewports that ran around its perimeter.
“Nothing in there?” Riker asked.
“I see what looks like a pair of launch tubes near the opposite wall. They lead right into the ceiling. See?”
Riker stepped closer for a better look. “What do you think? Missile launchers?”
“I'm thinking escape pods,” said McAdams. “If so, it gives us a way out, if all else fails.”
“Lieutenant McAdams is correct,” Data said. They turned to see him bent over a free-standing console several meters away while Barclay kept watch. “The tubes each contain an escape pod. I have found an access terminal to this facility's central databases. I believe I have found the answers to at least some of our questions.”
The away team gathered around Data as he scrolled rapidly through a stream of text and images. Riker could not make out much as Data worked, though he thought he saw snatches of android diagrams, plus recordings of three men working around a large black slab, whom Riker recognized as Maddox, Barclay and Vaslovik.
“Evidence?” Riker asked.
“I believe, Commander, that the answer is both yes and no,” Data reported. “I am accessing his logs and will be better able to explain in a few moments.”
Barclay had apparently found another access terminal nearby and was also accessing records. “All the holographic clusters we created have been downloaded,” he said.
“Which means what?” McAdams asked.
“It means Professor Vaslovik activated the android's neural net.”
“Can you determine whether or not the process worked?”
Reg shook his head. “No. This computer only shows that the files were moved, not whether the holotronic brain activated successfully.”
Riker stepped around to face Data behind his console. “Data? Anything?”
Data looked up from the display just as the stream of information ceased. The gray light from the screen cast heavy shadows across his features and made his golden skin appear dour and sickly. “Yes, Commander. Quite a bit, in fact. Apparently I was only partly correct about Professor Vaslovik. For reasons that are still unclear to me, he was planning to abduct the holotronic android from the moment he agreed to join the project. However, while he was, in fac
t, responsible for the android's disappearance, and the purging of the project records, he was not responsible for the explosion in the lab or for Commander Maddox's subsequent injury. If anything, I believe he may have saved the commander's life.
“The logs show that Vaslovik became aware some time ago that the project had come under the scrutiny of persons unknown. The indications were subtle: Some of the datafiles in the lab were being accessed and sensor ghosts kept showing up on the security system. Unfortunately, whoever was doing this left no trail. The biosensors turned up nothing.
“Vaslovik was reluctant to reveal his suspicions to Commander Maddox and Lieutenant Barclay, fearing what their unknown intruders might do if he tipped his hand too soon. Instead, he finalized his preparations to abscond with the android, creating the forgery to leave in its place. It seems he originally hoped to do a more complete job on the forgery in order to make it appear to the Institute as if the project simply failed. But when the planet's climate control system went offline, Vaslovik knew that some manner of assault was imminent, and implemented his escape plan before the forgery was ready to withstand close inspection. Like his adversaries, he was able to use the sudden confusion during the storm to mask his activities, and got away with the real android before they or anyone else arrived on the scene.”
“So there's an unknown third party involved in all this,” McAdams said. “Is there any clue in there at all as to who it might be, what their motives were or where Vaslovik took the real android?”
“No,” Data said to all three questions. “However, there is a clear indication here that after Vaslovik saw to Commander Maddox's safety, he used a device to deliberately induce the commander's coma, as insurance against Maddox revealing whatever he'd seen that night in the lab.”
“It's beginning to feel like we're taking two steps backward for every one we take forward,” Riker said irritably. “How the hell are we supposed to—”
