For long seconds, none of them spoke, and only static hissed back in reply from their helmet speakers. There seemed to be chaotic patterns in the sound, and the Vulcan strained to pick them out.
At his side, Pava gave an involuntary shudder, her antennae flattening toward her brow. “Did you hear that? On the edge of the sound, something faint?”
While Vulcan hearing was highly sensitive, Andorians perceived a whole other order of subsonics through their cranial feelers, along with subtle perturbations of electrical energy. “What was it, Lieutenant?”
“Just for a second, it sounded like… I don’t know, like whispering. Like laughter. And not the good kind.”
Tuvok raised an eyebrow. Clearly, the security officer was allowing her heightened emotional state to affect her reading of the situation.
“There’s a light, over there,” said Sethe, moving to the top of a low hemisphere of metal emerging from the uneven iron surface. “That way.” He pointed.
Off in the direction of the cabled gantries, a lopsided pyramid of metal lay low against the near horizon. Weak illumination spilled from a long gap in its side, a watery white glow barely visible at this distance. Tuvok had not noticed it on his initial survey of the landscape and wondered if it had been lost in the haze or perhaps only activated just now, in response to his transmission.
“Perhaps we are being extended an invitation,” said Dakal. He winced slightly as he spoke, clutching at his injured arm. “It could be a shelter or a communications nexus.”
“That would seem to be the logical deduction,” Tuvok set off walking across the scarred iron plain, and the others fell in behind him. He did not check the biomonitor on the cuff of his suit; there was no need to do so. He knew exactly how long it would be before his air grew thin, how long it would be before his team began to slow as the fatigue poisons in their bloodstreams accumulated, how long it would be before the ambient radiation began to damage them.
He hoped it would be long enough.
“Torvig?”
The Choblik didn’t hear her resolve into being. The same moment his internal sensors detected the flood of photons from the holographic emitters in the walls of main engineering, his audial receptors picked up the phased perturbation of the air that simulated her voice, the intricate action of micropressor beams mimicking the action of human vocality. He looked away from his console, where readouts for the recently repaired deuterium tank lay in complex layers. The work was almost finished, and now that contact had been reestablished with Lieutenant McCreedy and her team aboard the tanker, the refueling operation was next on Torvig’s task list—once they were safely back in the Sentry spacedock, of course.
The avatar halted that train of thought, however. Despite her dissimilarity to his species archetype, Torvig found himself compelled by her presence, and in moments when the hologram was not around, he found his thoughts drifting toward her and what she represented.
“Hello again,” he said brightly. “Can I help you with something?” It was a specious question to ask, and he realized it as soon as he said it. She was the ship, after all. There’s little I can do for her that she can’t.
“Your advice would be welcomed, Ensign. I have made mistakes, I think.” She spoke haltingly. “Errors in judgment.”
Torvig didn’t nod, but he knew what she was referring to. Bad news travels faster than light, as Ranul Keru was fond of saying, and reports of what had transpired on the bridge during the engagement with the Null had already reached down to the engineering levels.
“I spoke with Melora,” she continued. “She showed emotional cues that were clearly the by-product of a marked resentment toward me. And then I angered the captain…” The avatar fell silent, her face stiffening.
“What do you want me to say?” Torvig watched her steadily. “You disregarded his authority in front of the entire bridge crew.”
“I did what I thought was right!” she insisted, her tone rising. “I wanted to make sure every one of my crew was safe. The captain, his wife and daughter, Melora and Xin, you…”
“And your own life. You wanted to preserve your own existence.”
“Of course. Is that wrong of me?”
“Maybe you were more afraid for yourself than you were for the existence of others.”
“No…” she began, looking away. “Yes, perhaps in a way, but I was trying to save lives.”
Torvig pursed his lips. It felt a little odd for him to be having this conversation, to be suddenly cast in the role of one teaching another, instead of being the one doing the learning. During his time aboard the Titan, the Choblik had frequently run into predicaments where his lack of familiarity about the manners and mores of other beings had been the cause of friction. He thought of Ranul Keru. The two of them had not had an auspicious start to their association, and yet, almost two years later, they were fast friends and trusted colleagues.
“You were not wrong,” Torvig told her, “but neither was the captain. You wanted him to rely on you to preserve the ship, but you have to rely on him not to risk any of us without good cause.”
“We could have been obliterated by the Null,” she insisted.
“But we weren’t,” he replied. “Because this crew follows Captain Riker’s example and performs to the very best of their abilities.”
For a long moment, the avatar did not speak. “I think I am disliked. I hear things that are said about me. I read their expressions. Many of the crew resent my existence. They are prejudiced against me.”
“It’s not that,” Torvig insisted. “When I first joined this ship, there were some who prejudged me because of my cybernetics.”
She nodded. “Yes, I know. Your personal logs speak of it.”
And of course, she would be able to read those entries; they’re a part of her memory banks, after all. He nodded and went on. “In a way, I was a reminder of something they were afraid of, and at first, trust was difficult for me to find. Some of my actions…” The Choblik sniffed in a dry chuckle. “Well, let’s just say I didn’t do myself any favors.”
“But they trust you now?” The raw need in her tone was just below the surface.
“Yes. Because I earned trust, because I gave it. You can’t just demand it. It’s a fragile thing.”
The hologram nodded again. “I have absorbed everything in the ship’s library on the subject, but it is dry. There’s no substance to facts without reality.” She looked at him. “So much to understand. It would be so much simpler if your kind were more like the Sentries. If there were no room for error or misinterpretation.” The avatar walked away, and she began to fade.
Torvig’s eyebrows sank. “My kind?” he repeated.
“Organics,” said the avatar, her voice a ghostly echo that vanished with the sight of her.
The ensign stared at the spot where the hologram had been, uncertain about the meaning behind the conversation he had just had.
“She’s starting to question.”
Torvig turned to see Doctor Ra-Havreii emerge from the shadow of one of the antimatter regulators. He blinked. He hadn’t been aware that the chief engineer was present.
Ra-Havreii gestured at the regulator. “They give off a broad EM field. I doubt that either of you knew I was listening.”
“How much did you hear?”
“Every word, lad, every word.” The Efrosian reached up to his chin and toyed with the wisps of white beard. “She’s questioning, and with that come acts of defiance. Then insolence and eventually rebellion. It’s the way of every child. She’s more human than she realizes.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Torvig said hopefully, but Ra-Havreii’s grim expression suggested that the reverse was true.
• • •
“Interrogative: Why am I being brought to this location?” The spiderlike mechanoid walked with a steady, rocking gait in front of Dennisar, turning the front section of its thorax around to stare directly at the security guard as it moved.
&nb
sp; “Captain’s orders,” rumbled the Orion, one hand never straying from the compact phaser rifle dangling from his shoulder strap. He pointed with his free hand toward the doors of the stellar cartography lab. “In there.”
“Interrogative: Am I to be held in lockdown once more?”
Dennisar grimaced at Crewman Krotine, who was keeping in step with him, her slim fingers also close to her own weapon. “Why do you have to keep doing that?” he asked the machine.
“Query is nonspecific. Please elucidate,” said the AI.
“Why do you say the word ‘interrogative’ before you ask a question? Don’t you think we can tell the difference between a statement and an inquiry?”
White-Blue halted, and it seemed to be thinking. “It is how we are programmed. It is… part of us.”
“But aren’t you an intelligent machine?” said Krotine. “Can’t you exceed your programming?”
The doors to the lab opened. “There are some aspects of self that cannot be altered,” admitted White-Blue, with a note of what sounded like weariness. “Interrogative: The same is true for organic beings, correct?”
“Depends on the being,” Dennisar replied, following the machine into the chamber. Krotine threw the chief petty officer a nod and took up station outside, the doors closing at her back.
• • •
White-Blue advanced down the long open gangway to the circular platform in the middle of the stellar cartography chamber, the blocky head turning this way and that as its multiple lenses whirred and whiskery sensor dendrites flicked at the air. “Most impressive,” it said, studying the massive starscape ranged out around it. “Laser-energy refractive matrices in contrafocal suspension. The illusion of spatial dimension is highly complex.”
“Our technology allows us to create virtual simulations of images, even ones with density and apparent mass.” Troi gave a neutral smile.
At her side, Captain Riker and Lieutenant Commander Pazlar had considerably less welcoming expressions. “Thank you, Chief,” Riker told the Orion, and with a sharp jut of the chin, Dennisar stepped back and stood at attention, blocking off any path of retreat should the AI droneframe attempt to leave.
“I would like to know more about these systems. But you did not bring me here to demonstrate your technological prowess,” White-Blue noted.
Riker glanced at the Elaysian. “Melora?”
She nodded and tugged self-consciously on her g-suit, walking woodenly toward a control console in the wall of the observation pulpit. “You recognize this stellar neighborhood as your own?” Pazlar pointed up at the stars arranged about them.
“Affirmative,” said the machine. “Vectors Prime through Spinward. The core of our exploratory zones through to the perimeter edges marked by the nebula remnants and dust clouds.”
A glowing yellow cord crossed the holographic space, entering the outer sectors of Sentry space. “This is the course of the Titan,” said Riker.
“You have traveled a great distance,” remarked the AI. “Our guardianship and exploration extends only to the edges of the sphere mandated by the Governance Kernel.”
Troi picked up on the note of wonder in the machine’s synthetic voice. “Would you like to explore further, if you could?”
“Affirmative,” it replied. “But other requirements are more pressing. Our duty.”
“The war with the Null,” said Riker.
White-Blue shifted on its metallic legs. “It is not warfare as you would define it, William-Riker. To employ a biological metaphor, the containment and eradication of incursion events more closely resemble the action of antibodies against a contaminating agent.”
“Is that how you see yourselves?” said Troi. “Sentries, standing against a tide of invasion?”
“Infection, not invasion,” it corrected.
Riker folded his arms over his chest. “Whatever name you want to give it, White-Blue, your conflict involves us now. Red-Gold and the others may not be willing to explain the scope of what’s going on here, but I believe you are. I want you to be open with us. The time for secrets has passed.”
The droneframe’s head tilted. “It is not for others to become involved—”
“We became involved the moment we found your vessel,” Pazlar broke in. Above her head, the gold line paused as a location marker formed around it, showing the point where White-Blue’s shipframe had been devastated. Other indicators, thin clouds of sapphire light, faded in. These were the zones of spatial distortion that the Titan’s sensors had first detected. “These areas of disruption reach out beyond the perimeter of Sentry space,” continued the Elaysian. “I think you’re well aware of that. And if they are connected to the Null, if they’re some kind of precursor to an incursion, then that means the incidence of those things is far more widespread than just your star system.”
“Other worlds may be at stake,” said Troi.
“There are no sentients for light-years in any direction,” retorted White-Blue.
“That you’re aware of,” Riker replied. The captain advanced on the machine. “Why are the Sentries so reluctant to speak about the Null? You’ve seen our technology. We can help you.” He halted in front of the droneframe, looking into its glassy eye lenses. “There is no logic in shutting us out. You know that as well as I do.”
“The incursions…” White-Blue was hesitant. “They have been our responsibility for trillions of clock cycles, centuries by your estimation.” The AI threw a brief glance at Dennisar. “The fight to suppress them is encoded in our very culture. It is part of us and not a duty we can ever deny.” It paused. “You understand duty very well, William-Riker. Your record shows that clearly.”
“Then explain it to me,” said the captain.
White-Blue studied the human for a moment. “My disclosure of this information to an organic life-form will result in grave censure from the Governance Kernel. When I next share data with my kind, what I have done will become known to them.” The machine rocked gently on its piston legs, almost as if it were releasing a silent sigh. “But I will address that problem when it occurs. Ask your questions. I will answer. It is, as you stated, the logical choice.”
“The Null… what are their origin and nature? What do they want?”
“You misunderstand,” said the AI. “The Null is not many life-forms. It is a single entity, a great mass beyond the scope of our measurement. Even as it exists in discrete subsets in our dimension, it is still part of a larger structure.”
“A hive mind?” suggested Troi.
“Negative,” White-Blue replied. “We do not believe it is self-aware, but it does demonstrate intellect on an instinctual level. It is predatory, it has cunning, perhaps even other primitive emotions in some fashion. It is unpredictable and highly lethal. Many hundreds of Sentry cores have been destroyed during the incursions.”
“But it’s not from our universe,” noted Pazlar. “The spatial distortion, the subspace radiation effects. All that points to something from another dimensional continuum. A form of protomatter evolved under an entirely different set of physical laws.”
“Correct. Conjecture on the origin of the Null indicates that it is likely the product of a parallel subspace domain, one that should not normally intersect with our spatial dimension. From what the FirstGen have been able to determine, in its native region, the Null is a seething ocean of energetic metamaterial, a quasi-viral life-form capable of consuming everything it comes into contact with.”
Pazlar nodded slowly. “That fits with what our sensors registered. Sariel was right when she said the Null was consuming the wreckage of the orbital refinery. It was converting the local matter into something more closely resembling itself, like a cancerous tumor forming neoplasm from healthy living tissue.”
“As you surmised, it has been penetrating our dimension through the zones of subspace instability detected by Lieutenant Commander Pazlar.” White-Blue paused. “It is, in the most literal of senses, anathema to all life in this dimensi
on, organic or otherwise.”
“Starfleet’s encountered hostile extradimensional lifeforms before,” said the captain. “A race of beings known as Species 8472, from a pocket universe of fluidic space, tried to mount an invasion of our dimension. But they were nothing like this.”
“No,” agreed Troi. “They could be reasoned with. When the Null attacked, I couldn’t sense anything like a coherent mind in there. Just a wall of noise. Like a raging storm. A force of nature.”
“And you can’t make peace with a hurricane,” Riker concluded.
“What happened to you?” Pazlar asked the machine. “Before we found you? Didn’t Red-Gold say you were thought lost?”
White-Blue’s head bobbed. “I ignored several directives that suggested I remain closer to the home system,” it admitted. “I was convinced that the rate of Null incursions was on the rise, and so I set out to take a series of readings in order to validate my theory. This involved venturing out beyond safe range.” It paused again. “I found what I sought, but a minor incursion took place, and my shipframe was critically damaged. System malfunctions caused me to become trapped in a recursive program loop. I estimate that my core would have lost all functionality within one thousand clock cycles, had your away team not arrived.”
Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis Page 24
