Immortal Coil

by Jeffrey Lang

  Picard cocked an eyebrow. “Are we having a bad day, Doctor?”

  Crusher sighed. “No, Captain. The sixty-five people who are crammed into sickbay and the additional forty or fifty who are lined up outside my door are having a bad day. I'm just having a very, very busy one. What can I do for you?”

  Picard decided that there was nothing he could do to placate Crusher at the moment and cut to the point. “Can Commander Maddox travel?”

  “If he has to,” Crusher said. “But I strongly suggest you go easy on him, sir. Whatever Sam did for him obviously reversed whatever was maintaining his coma, but there's no way to know what aftereffects there might be.”

  “Understood, Doctor. How are the casualties?”

  “All things considered, Captain, it could have been worse,” Crusher said. Then she added in a softer tone, “Go easy on yourself too, Jean-Luc.”

  Picard felt one corner of his mouth lift. “Recommendation noted, Doctor. Picard out.” Turning back to Maddox, the captain said, “Apparently Dr. Crusher feels you're fit enough to travel. I'll clear it with Admiral Haftel. We leave orbit in two hours.” He started to leave the room.

  Taking another sip of water, Maddox asked, “Are you headed back to the ship now, sir?”

  Pausing in the open door, Picard shook his head. “No,” he said. “I have another visit to make before I head back.”

  Security detention areas all look the same, Picard reflected, then wondered how tired he needed to be before such a trite observation could intrude on his consciousness. Sam—or whatever his name truly was—sat on the single bunk, looking quite composed, back against the wall, long legs crossed at the ankles. He had stripped off his medical technician's disguise and was wearing some overalls one of the security officers had given him. Deanna Troi had already checked the transporter logs and found no indication about when the bartender had beamed down, but several crewmen swore they had seen Sam in the lounge just before the attack had begun. How had he done it? Picard wondered. And why? To spy on the Federation flagship? Steal secrets from a key scientific installation? Give life back to a man he didn't know? Save two officers from what had looked like almost certain death? It was an odd commingling of events and it would require some effort to untangle the threads.

  Picard saw Haftel standing near the invisible barrier, then looked around for a security officer. Haftel said, “I dismissed him. No sense in wasting manpower when there's plenty of other things to do.”

  Picard nodded, then said hello to Sam.

  “How are you, Captain?” the bartender drawled pleasantly. “How's the ship?”

  “The ship . . . can be repaired. Some of her crew, unfortunately, cannot.” Picard felt a small coal of anger that he had banked deep in his breast flare up into a lick of flame. He would find whoever had sent the “iceship.” He would find them, and then he would . . . But then he forced the thought down. Vengeance wasn't the goal, he knew, but then he had to ask himself, What was? Comprehension, perhaps? Would understanding why twenty-nine people had died ease the pain of mourning families? He somehow doubted it, but knew it was the only path he could permit himself.

  Sam stared at the floor, then ran a hand across his jaw. “I'm sorry, Captain. I truly am. I'm sure I knew some of them and probably would have liked to know them all.”

  The bartender's obvious regret permitted Picard to release some of his own anger and regret. “Thank you,” he said, then discovered he couldn't think of anything else to say, so he turned to Haftel. “Has he told you anything important?”

  Haftel shook his head. “Not unless you count his secret formula for the perfect dry martini. He says he wants to talk to you. Only to you. He says you'll understand.” The admiral frowned. “Do you have any idea why that might be, Captain?”

  Picard thought back to his conversation with Sam in the Enterprise's lounge. For good works, the man had said. He nodded absently, staring at the detention cell's blank walls. “Yes, Admiral,” Picard said. “I think I might. Would you excuse us?”

  Haftel hauled himself up to his feet. “And here's where I impart a secret to you, Captain, the secret of rising to my current lofty rank: Always know when it's time to leave a room.”

  Picard smiled. “I'll take it with me to my grave, sir.”

  Haftel shook his head. “Don't bother, Captain. It's not a very good secret.” He nodded to the prisoner. “It was a pleasure to speak with you, sir. I hope you don't turn out to be a spy.”

  Sam waved. “Thanks, Admiral. And remember: pour the vermouth on the ice, then strain it out. Then add the gin.”

  “I'll take it with me to my grave, sir,” Haftel said as the doors closed behind him.

  “You know, Captain,” Sam said, “this quadrant of space has played host to a dozen sprawling empires in the past half-million years. Several of them have reached greater pinnacles of science and art. Most of them have been wealthier and one or two of them have actually made the leap to the next evolutionary stage, but none of them, none of them has been as . . . you'll forgive the expression . . . humane as the Federation. And it's largely because, somehow, you people have worked out a system where people like him . . .” he pointed toward the door, “. . . end up as administrators. You should be very proud.”

  Picard sat down in the single chair, pondering the statement. Then, almost as if it were a casual thought, he rose and deactivated the cell's force field. “I suppose I am,” he said, sitting down again. “And thank you, though I suppose I'll have to ask you how you know so much about the last half-million years of local history.”

  “Ah, well, thereby hangs a tale. How much time do you have?”

  “Not as much as I wish I did,” Picard said. “In fact, I fear I am already running behind. Perhaps you should try to be brief.”

  “Well, I'm a bartender. ‘Brief’ is not one of the things we tend to do well, but I'll do my best. Where should we begin?”

  Picard thought about the long list of questions he had been compiling and decided that Sam might be the type who would respond best to a less confrontational tone. “The bottle of wine—the Maison St. Gaspar. You said, ‘For good works.’ At the time, I thought I understood what you meant, but now I'm not so sure: what ‘good works’?”

  Sam didn't hesitate. “Your advocacy of Data during the hearing to determine his rights as a sentient being in your society. It was quite a feat. Seldom in the history of this universe has any organic being grasped the fundamental truth of artificial sentience.”

  “And that is?”

  “I think, therefore I live.”

  Picard leaned back in his chair to ponder the ramifications of Sam's pronouncement, to see if he could fit it into the events of the past few days. Finally, he said slowly, “That's what's at the core of all of this, isn't it? The right to proclaim your existence—you, whatever you are, whether anyone is going to be happy about it or not.”

  Sam shrugged. “Saying that proclaiming one's existence is a right presumes everyone is working on the same moral plane. I am, by nature, a cynic, Captain. Let us say simply the reality of existence: thought equals life.”

  Picard snorted. “This is all taking on a faintly familiar air. I know a pan-dimensional being who would greatly enjoy your conversation.”

  Sam nodded. “I believe I'll take that as a compliment.”

  “I suppose it is,” Picard said, internally frowning at the thought. Suddenly, there was steel in Picard's voice and he realized that he had been riding a rising wave of anger for the past several hours, a wave that was about to come crashing down on a barkeep's well-coiffed head. “But there's one significant difference between you and . . . that being: I have you locked in a brig and, unless I miss my guess, I can keep you here for as long as I like. So, perhaps we should forgo the forensic society niceties and cut to the chase: Who are you? Who are the beings who attacked my ship and killed members of my crew? Where are my missing officers? And what the hell is going on here?”

  Sam stared blankly
at Picard for several seconds, then pulled his hands out from behind his head, folded them in his lap, and sat up slightly straighter. “All right, Captain,” he said. “You've earned this. To begin, as you already know, I'm an android, or, if you don't mind, an artificial sentient being. Technically, I believe the term ‘android’ refers to a mechanical device that has been constructed to look and act like a humanoid. You will be interested to know that there are a great many artificial sentients who choose not to wear humanoid forms.”

  “How do you know that?” Picard asked. He realized he was beginning to feel anxious, like he wanted to gather as much information as quickly as possible. He had an uncomfortable sensation that events were beginning to overtake him and he needed to catch up.

  Sam smiled at the question. “Because I'm well-acquainted with a number of them. You see, I'm a member of a loose fellowship of highly evolved and very ancient artificial sentients, who all outlived or outgrew the various species who created them. They . . . we . . . wander the galaxy, living, learning, and growing, sometimes making our homes among you organics, sometimes coming together to share our experiences . . . if only for short periods of time. We aren't really what you would call a ‘culture.’ It's more of a . . . well, think of us as a wine-tasting club: diverse individuals drawn together by our shared appreciation for the infinite flavors the universe has to offer.”

  Sam could see that Picard was beginning to grasp the significance of what he was saying. “Not that all the conversations we share are on such a lofty plane. We're not all like Data, you know, not all vast intellectual powerhouses, though most of the cultures that built us generally tried to incorporate some level of superior intelligence in their creations . . . with varying degrees of success. If we share any goal—if we have a ‘prime directive’ of our own—it's to remain watchful for new attempts to create beings like us. Beings like Rhea McAdams.”

  “Are you telling me she's the holotronic android?” Picard asked. A dozen questions about how and why such an elaborate impersonation and infiltration of his ship could have been perpetrated came to his lips, but Picard forced himself to focus on the more immediate issues. “And the beings that attacked my officers and my ship . . . that caused the explosion in Commander Maddox's lab . . . they're androids, too?”

  Sam nodded. “Yes to all your questions, though I should tell you right away that the androids who have been attacking you are not a part of my fellowship.”

  “How can you be so certain?” Picard asked. “It doesn't sound like you exactly keep tabs on each other.”

  “True, but I've tried to keep tabs on our foes. I know exactly who they are.” He paused, then wet his lips with his tongue. A peculiar gesture, Picard thought, all things considered. “Have you ever heard of the planet Exo III, Captain?” he asked.

  Picard searched his memory for a reference to the planet, then shook his head. “I've heard of the Exo system—or should say, seen it on star charts—but that particular planet? No.”

  “What about Dr. Roger Korby?”

  Picard's eyebrows shot up. “Of course. The ‘Pasteur of archaeological medicine.’ His translations of the Orion medical databases are standard reading for both xenobiologists and archaeologists.” He ruminated for a moment. “Wait . . . Is Exo III the planet where Korby died?”

  “Twice, actually, but bravo nonetheless,” Sam smiled. In response to Picard's confused expression, he said, “We'll get to that in a moment. Here's the first thing you need to know. Long before Roger Korby died there, Exo III was home to a species of beings whose names wouldn't translate terribly well into anything in your language. Korby called them ‘the Old Ones,’ which is, I suppose, more a comment on his literal-mindedness than his lack of imagination. But never mind.

  “Over half a million years ago, the sun you call Exo began to cool and the home of the Old Ones became a barren, ice-swept wasteland. Though they were quite clever in some regards, they had some issues with space travel. Never took to it, I'm afraid. I think the term you might use is ‘agoraphobic,’ which explains their rather odd decision to move everything underground.”

  “Underground?” Picard asked. “On a planet that was becoming frozen?”

  “Apparently, they had mastered some form of geothermal energy. In any case, there weren't many of them and underground seemed as good an option as any. They were old and they were, by any measure you care to use, feeble, but they were also quite clever. They liked to build things and there was one thing they built particularly well.”

  “Androids?” Picard guessed. Sam nodded.

  “As I said, they were growing feeble and they needed help to survive. And it was, I suppose, their desire for survival at any cost that led to their downfall. They worked desperately to perfect their androids, to try to create not simply artificial intelligence, but artificial consciousness. The difference between the two, I'm sure you of all people realize, is sublime. It's the same as the difference between your ship's computer and Data. One is a machine. The other is alive. And the Old Ones believed their best chance for survival was to create the latter. A machine, they reasoned, no matter how intelligent, might give up if logic dictated that survival was not an option. It might be more inclined to surrender to the inevitable.” Sam paused and stared into the middle distance. “And that was, I suppose, the very thing that they wanted to hide from themselves; a machine would have told them the truth. But truly self-aware, self-determining servants would keep the Old Ones alive no matter what.”

  “Did they succeed?”

  “Let's just say the results were less than perfect. Yes, they did succeed in creating a race of self-aware androids, but with a consciousness that was stagnant. The androids could process new experiences as pure data, but they couldn't apply them to their personal growth. In short, the androids were created with a need to evolve, but were innately incapable of it. They even expressed that need to their creators. ‘Fix us,’ they said, because they knew, they knew something was terribly wrong with the way they'd been created. But there was no way to give them what they needed. The only way to correct the mistake was to wipe the slate clean and start over.”

  “Are you saying the Old Ones destroyed their androids?”

  “They planned to. Their creations became more demanding, more dangerous. The Old Ones realized then that they needed to act quickly, and secretly. Worse, in order to buy themselves time, they promised to fix their creations, even though they knew they couldn't, and poured their resources instead into developing technology that would enable them to transfer the consciousness of a living mind into ‘unformatted’ android bodies.”

  Picard was appalled. That a civilization could grow so decadent, and so desperate as to create sentient servants only to discard them as a failure of genius . . .

  “When the androids began to suspect the truth, the Old Ones tried to trick them into voluntarily turning themselves off—part of the process of repairing them, don't you see?—but some of the androids weren't fooled. They had developed a sense of self-preservation.” Sam paused again, as if gathering his thoughts. Finally, he continued, “There is no record of the carnage, Captain, nor do I know how many Old Ones were alive on the day the androids discovered they were betrayed, but I do know that before Exo III spun again on its axis, all the Old Ones were dead.”

  “And what did the androids do then?” Picard asked. “And what does this have to do with you and the attackers, Data, McAdams . . . all of this?”

  “I'm getting to that, Captain. Patience, please. I'm not doing this for my own entertainment, though, I confess, I am enjoying having the opportunity to explain it to someone. You know, you're the first organic being who's ever heard this entire tale. That has to count for something, doesn't it?”

  “Normally,” Picard replied, “I would be tempted to say yes. But not today. Too much blood has been shed.”

  “I understand,” Sam said. “But understanding these events . . . it might prevent more blood from being spilled.”
/>   Picard gestured for Sam to continue.

  “All right,” Sam said. “The Old Ones were dead, as was the perceived threat they represented. But by now the androids' paranoia had developed to a degree that all intelligent organic beings were perceived as a threat. Though the androids themselves lacked any meaningful space-flight technology—no faster-than-light drive, in any case—they knew that someday, sooner or later, some intelligent organic species would find its way to Exo III. They decided their only option was to wait for the day, take possession of the ‘invader's’ spacecraft, and escape, whereupon they would search other worlds for the solution that their creators, they believed, denied them.

  “It took a little longer than they expected. Given the state of Exo III, there was little to attract any traveler to it. Conditions on the planet were getting worse, so the androids eventually decided to go into stasis. They left one of their own behind to serve as a caretaker and watchman. His name was Ruk.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  One Hundred Thirteen Years Ago

  RUK WAS ANGRY.

  There was nothing particularly new about that. Ruk was always angry. Rage was the bedrock of his being, its fuel and fount. He could no longer remember the catalyst of his rage, but that was unimportant. The anger was, in and of itself, a thing, as real as the chill air that stirred against his skin, as real as darkness, as real as ice.

  Sometimes, if Ruk sat quietly long enough, he could almost remember a time when he had not been angry. Or less angry. Maybe that was closer to the truth. He would delve down into the cave of memory and blindly grope around in the musty recesses until he found the unraveled end of some coherent moment. If Ruk was patient, sometimes images would begin to coalesce and voices would float up out of the distant past. Once, only once, many, many years ago, Ruk had listened as carefully as he knew how, had calmed the tides of anger for just one moment and had heard someone say, “Everything fades, Ruk. Entropy is the fate of the universe. Even you will fade someday.”