“It’s in there now, running the recompression cycle. Security protocols are ineffective.” Keru gestured with his phaser.
“A Sentry drone,” Dennisar said with a grimace. He toggled the dekyon emitter on his weapon to firing mode.
“Doesn’t anyone ever knock first?” Riker muttered.
With a heavy thud of magnetic bolts, the inner hatch released and retracted into the walls. Keru and his team went to the ready.
There was a grinding of pistons, and a spiderlike machine stepped out of the airlock. A thin patina of ice had formed on the machine from the moisture in the Titan’s atmosphere cooling on its space-chilled exterior.
“White-Blue?” said Riker. “You look different.”
“My droneframe has been upgraded. But I could say the same for you, William-Riker. I believe the correct phrase is ‘Nice outfit.’ ”
“It learned that from me,” Keru noted.
The captain gestured for the security team to lower their weapons. “Why are you here?”
“My apologies for this unorthodox method of entry,” said the Sentry. “After your words to the Governance Kernel, I was given much to consider. And on reflection about the brief period I spent onboard this starship, one fact has continued to concern me.”
“And you just thought you would come here and tell me that in person?”
“Affirmative. Interrogative: Do you recall what I said to you in the cargo bay? That the life-forms aboard this starship are a microcosm of the society you strive for?”
“I remember. I also remember you accusing us of prejudice.”
“A rush to judgment on my part, perhaps.” The machine’s sensor head tilted to study the humanoids around it. “But the fact remains, for all of your vessel’s multi-species diversity, with the avatar program’s departure and the return of your ship’s computer system to a nonsentient state, once again you no longer represent artificial life among your crew.”
“You yourself said that the avatar was a unique creation. We can’t… bring her back.”
“Negative,” said the machine. “Any attempt would be extremely unlikely to succeed.” It paused, and when White-Blue spoke again, it seemed introspective. “I have learned from your kind that there is much more to this universe than conflict. And I would like to see it. Therefore, Captain-William-Riker, I wish to remain aboard the U.S.S. Titan and offer my skills to you for this ship’s ongoing mission.”
Riker’s jaw worked, but nothing came out. Finally, he found a reply. “I’m not sure what to say.”
The machine looked at him intently. “Say yes.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once more, my gratitude goes out to Marco Palmieri and Margaret Clark for bringing me on to tell a tale of Titan’s ongoing mission, and to Andy Mangels, Michael Martin, Geoffrey Thorne, Christopher L. Bennett, and David Mack for bringing her this far.
Again, appreciation is due to Peter J. Evans, Jon Chapman, Ben Aaronovitch, Karen McCreedy, and Una McCormack for acting as sounding boards for early iterations of this storyline; also to Jeffrey Lang, Heather Jarman, Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, Joe Menosky, Maurice Hurley, Robert Lewin, Geoff Mandel, Debbie Mirek, Larry Nemecek, Rick Sternbach, and Michael and Denise Okuda for their works of fiction and reference.
And with much love to my space angel, Mandy Mills.
The editor would like to thank Mike and Denise Okuda for the word.
Synthesis was written on location in London, Norfolk, and Montreal. No computers were harmed during the making of this production.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Swallow is proud to be the only British writer to have worked on a Star Trek television series, creating the original story concepts for Star Trek: Voyager episodes “One” and “Memorial.” His other Star Trek writing includes the Terok Nor novel Day of the Vipers; the Myriad Universes novella Seeds of Dissent; the short stories “The Slow Knife,” “The Black Flag,” “Ordinary Days,” and “Closure” for the anthologies Seven Deadly Sins, Shards and Shadows, The Sky’s the Limit, and Distant Shores; scripting the video game Star Trek Invasion; and more than four hundred articles in thirteen different Star Trek magazines around the world.
Beyond the final frontier, as well as a nonfiction book (Dark Eye: The Films of David Finchner), Swallow also wrote the Sundowners series of original steampunk westerns; Jade Dragon, The Butterfly Effect, and novels in the worlds of Doctor Who (Peacemaker), Warhammer 40,000 (Red Fury, The Flight of the Einstein, Faith & Fire, Deus Encarmine, and Deus Sanguinius), Stargate (Halcyon, Relativity, and Nightfall), and 2000AD (Eclipse, Whiteout, and Blood Relative). His other credits include scripts for video games and audio dramas, including Battlestar Galactica, Blake’s 7, and Space 1889.
James Swallow lives in London and is currently at work on his next book.
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