"It is a pity," he interrupted her abruptly, "that you de-sired to know what was generating the unknown energy waves you detected. For circumstances have arisen that will enable you to find out... firsthand. And it will not be a pleasant experience."
Soleta most definitely did not like the sound of that. "That sounds suspiciously like a threat, Thoth. I do not think threats will be necessary." She turned as the turbo-lift doors opened and said, "Come. If we speak to the captain, I am quite sure that he will-"
"Who are you talking to?" asked Burgoyne, turning in hir chair to look at the entering Soleta in puzzlement.
Soleta stopped and looked over her shoulder. Only the empty car of the turbolift was behind her. Otherwise there was no sign of Thoth.
"He's gone," said an annoyed Soleta.
"He's gone?" asked Burgoyne, getting to his feet. Ke-bron likewise seemed most interested in the conversa-tion. "Who's gone?"
"Thoth," she said, feeling like a fool for scrutinizing the inside of the obviously empty turbolift, as if Thoth might somehow have shrunk to minuscule size.
"A god."
"Another one?" Kebron said, sounding rather exas-perated by the entire thing. "Why not a fleet of them while we're at it?"
Ten seconds later, Kebron would have cause to regret having said a word.
At the exact moment that Soleta was first encounter-ing Thoth, Mackenzie Calhoun was summoning Mark McHenry into his ready room.
McHenry entered, looking rather nervous to Calhoun, like a small boy being summoned to the principal's of-fice for talking back to the teacher or getting into fights. To some degree, Calhoun's heart went out to him. McHenry hadn't asked for any of this, and would very likely have been more than happy to go on about his life with no involvement of gods or goddesses or Cyclops or dragons or whatever the hell else opted to step out of the pages of myth and legend and insert itself into the af-fairs of the Excalibur. But, Calhoun reasoned, there was no whining about it. The situation was what it was, and the only option they had left open to them was to deal with it.
Calhoun, from behind his desk, gestured for McHenry to sit. He did so, so awkwardly that it seemed as if he'd forgotten how to get his knees to bend. Calhoun tried to adopt as avuncular a manner as possible as he folded his hands and smiled at McHenry. "So... interesting times we're living in, wouldn't you say, Mr. McHenry?"
"If you mean 'interesting' as in the old Chinese curse, Captain, I'd have to agree," said McHenry. He seemed a bit haggard, as if he hadn't been sleeping much lately. Given everything that had been going on, that seemed quite likely.
"Look, McHenry... Mark... I can't tell you what todo..."
"Actually, you can," McHenry said with what seemed a jump in hope. "You're the captain. You can do exactly that. You can tell me what to do, and I'd have to do it."
"All right, point taken, I suppose I can tell you what to do. I am, however, choosing not to."
"Damn," muttered McHenry, sagging back in the chair. He looked rather depressed, and yet Calhoun had to make an effort not to smile.
"I am, however, extremely curious about several mat-ters in front of us," Calhoun said. "Kebron came to me this morning..."
"Oh, God," moaned McHenry, sinking further into his chair.
"Mark, he is still your friend..."
"Unh-hunh."
"He could have sought me out far earlier, Mark, and told me about his observations and suspicions. He was, in fact, belatedly chagrined over the fact that he didn't. He told me if it had been anyone else, he would have come straight to me. But because of your long relationship, he wanted to be absolutely sure, wanted to give me every chance..."
"To hang myself?"
Calhoun sighed and shook his head. "The personal aspects of this matter, Mark, will be something you need to take up personally with Kebron. What interests me now is what he told me."
"And... what did he tell you?" asked McHenry, his eyes narrowing.
"He told me that you faced down a member of the Q Continuum. Not just any member, in fact... but the Q who has made such a point of making Jean-Luc Picard's life so... interesting..."
"There's that word again."
He nodded, and laughed softly at the notion. But then he grew serious again. "He said that Q was physically transforming individuals... but was either unable or unwilling to do so with you. And he appeared somewhat surprised... even taken aback by you. Considering the degree of power that Q wields, that is a remarkable reac-tion, to say the least." He paused. McHenry didn't vol-unteer to say anything. "Do you want to explain it?" he prompted.
"I'm... afraid to."
Calhoun stared at him, uncertain what to make of that. "You mean... you're afraid of recriminations... ?"
"No. I'm just... afraid to think about it." He let out an unsteady breath. "Captain... the older I've got-ten... the more I've felt like... like I'm becoming one of them."
"Them. You mean the Beings."
McHenry nodded, his face wan. "You have... you have no idea what it's like. I mean, when people hit pu-berty, there are always changes, you know? That's nat-ural. When it happened to me, though, I felt... I was able to reach out, to... I..." He shook his head. "I can't explain it, really. And then Artemis and I became... you know..."
"Lovers?"
"Yes."
"But you broke it off."
"Because I was afraid," he said. "When I would be with her... I mean, with her, you know... ?"
"Yes, I get the picture, Mr. McHenry."
"Well..." And he seemed to be casting his thoughts back to that time. "I felt like... like she was doing more than... you know. I felt as if she was unlocking something, pushed a button in my head that I didn't even know was there. That's why I broke it off. Hell, maybe that's why I joined Starfleet... to try and run away from... from everything, I guess. The thing is, once she pushed that button, there was no going back, and I think it's been building over the years. And I'm be-coming..."
"More like them, you said. But what do you mean by that, exactly?"
McHenry couldn't sit still anymore. He was out of his chair, pacing. "You see them," he said. "You see her. They're all the same. Beings who have energy at their base... who are able to manipulate it in a variety of ways, depending on their individual skills. Beings who... who..." "Who what?"
He stopped pacing and lowered his voice, as if afraid of the words about to come out of bis own mouth. "Who look human... purely because they choose to look human. And I'm thinking... I'm thinking the reason Q couldn't alter my appearance... was because my belief in what I look like, in what I am... held me together. Made me immune to him. But naturally that makes me start to wonder..."
"How solid your hold on your humanity is?" McHenry nodded bleakly.
"You think... that if you stop believing in your ap-pearance... in yourself... that you will become just like them. That you'll lose your humanity completely." Again McHenry nodded, looking ashamed, looking frustrated, looking scared.
"That's why you've been secretive about it. That's why you've tried to repress it."
"That's just it," said McHenry, turning to face Cal-houn once more, leaning with his hands on the back of the chair he'd just been sitting in. "I haven't been trying to repress it as much as I should." "What do you mean?"
He took in a deep breath to steady himself. "Ever since Artemis and I were lovers... ever since she flipped that switch... my head's been different. It's as if I'm able to be everywhere at the same time, if I just think about it. Like there's so much information out there, more than I can handle, more than anyone can handle, that I just have to sit there and let it wash over me. I'm able to... how do I explain this... ?" His voice trailed off and Calhoun sat patiently, letting McHenry take his time, phrase it in his own way. "It's like... tike I'm keyed into the universe at a space-time level," he said finally. "That's how I always know where I am, no matter what. At first I was afraid to do even that, but hey, it got me through the Academy, so I didn't want to question it."
/> "Well, that's... that's not such a bad thing, Mark... in the final analysis..."
"Except that's not the final analysis, Captain. It's not the final anything. You see, the more I used this... this 'ability' of mine... the more I felt like I could do other things. Things I'm afraid to do because it'd bring me closer to being one of them."
Slowly the light was beginning to dawn for Calhoun. "What... sort of things, Mark?"
He wanted to look down, but instead he forced him-self to meet his captain's gaze. "Like... affecting the space-time continuum on a local level. I only did it the one time, and I wasn't even sure I could do it then. And when I did, it left me so exhausted, I could barely move for three days..."
Slowly Calhoun got to his feet, staring at McHenry as if seeing him for the first time. "When the Excalibur blew up..."
"Yes..."
'There... really wasn 't enough time to get everyone off the ship..."
McHenry shook his head, looking miserable. "I'm so sorry, Captain..."
"Sorry?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
'I wish I could have done more. If only I could have turned time backward somehow... prevented the entire destruction..."
"Mark! You're telling me that somehow you... you warped time? Took the five minutes that we had to get off the ship and just... just stretched it to fifteen or twenty, as if it was elastic... ?"
McHenry shrugged. "Well, mere is a certain amount of subjective elasticity to time. That's why time really does fly when you're having fun, but drags on if you're in-volved in some boring duty. It's just an aspect of science mat no one's really explored because they don't know it's mere to be explored. I call it Chronal Infarction myself, although I'm sure smarter people than me will wind up catting it something else. Plus we use the warp engines to bend space and time around us anyway. So I was able to tap into the energy being given off by the overloading
warp engines to slow things down. Make time bend to my subjective point of view. Of course, I had to convince my-self that time was slowing down, which wasn't easy. But thought made it deed, and, well..." He shrugged, look-
ing a bit selfconscious about the whole thing.
"Mark, you saved everyone's life! You saved mine!
That... that bizarre feeling," Calhoun was saying, shaking his head in disbelief, "when I was running to-ward the shuttle bay... feeling as if I was... was swimming through a reality that had become nearly gelatinous... what I was experiencing was you, bend-ing time around me."
"Yessir. I hope you're not upset."
"Upset! " Calhoun laughed, unable to believe what he was hearing, and he came around the desk, took McHenry's hand and shook it firmly. "Didn't you hear what I said? I owe you my life. I will never forget what you did."
"Well, that's what Artemis was talking about when she said I had potential. The thing is... I'm not sure I want it"
"Mark, you can't deny what you are."
"Captain, with all respect," McHenry said, glancing in the direction of Calhoun's sword hanging upon the wall, "if people couldn't deny what they were, you'd still be back on Xenex running around being a barbarian warlord. The only unlimited energy source in the cos-mos is the capacity for self-delusion."
"Point taken," Calhoun admitted. "We seem to have opposing views of how you handled the destruction of the previous Excalibur, Mr. McHenry. Whereas I would be inclined to see that you were given the Starfleet Cita-tion for Conspicuous Gallantry, you on the other hand seem rather annoyed with yourself because you weren't capable of single-handedly preventing the entire ship from being destroyed. You never struck me as a glass-half-empty sort of fellow, Mark."
"Times change," McHenry said dourly. "Very true. And what we have to deal with at this point is the times that are directly in front of us. Specifi-cally... the Beings." He crossed his arms and scrutinized McHenry. He didn't want to overburden the already fid-gety helmsman, but there was simply no point in walking gently around the situation. "Mark... I know we're dis-cussing the rest of your life here. I know this is possibly the largest decision you're ever going to be faced with, and I would love to tell you to take all the time in the world. But we don't have that luxury. We're faced with a race of remarkable power with an offer on the table. We have some sort of uncharted, unknown energy emission, the origin of which we still have not determined... and if we're going to do so, we may have to go right into the thick of it. I will do that if necessary, but it's always better to have too much information than too little."
"What do you want from me, Captain?" He did not sound at all plaintive or whining when he said it; he sun-ply wanted to know.
Calhoun scratched his beard thoughtfully. "You told me that Artemis came to you. That she explained this entire 'golden age' thing. This 'ambrosia.' Let's put aside for a moment the entire concept of-for lack of a better word-worshipping these individuals. What I need you to tell me... from here," and he tapped his solar plexus, "from your gut... whether or not these Beings can be trusted. You say you're becoming like them? Don't be afraid of that. Let that, instead, inform you. Let it enable you to put your mind into where their minds are. See the universe from their point of view.
The best way to predict your opponent is to become your opponent. Look into your heart of hearts and tell me: Are these Beings honorable? Can they be trusted to keep their word? Are you willing to possibly stake the direction of the Federation on their offer?"
Calhoun expected McHenry to go into deep thought Indeed, he was fully prepared to watch McHenry stare off into space, either retreating deep into his own head or else expanding his consciousness to take in the en-tirety of the galaxy-or some such-before coming back with an answer.
Instead what he got was McHenry forcefully nodding his head... and then he said, "Absolutely not."
"What?" said Calhoun, confused. "You... nodded yes, but said-"
"I was nodding because I was certain, Captain. I mean... you know all the myths about how the gods were petty and selfish and all that? Well, as near as I can tell, it's pretty much true, and my gut-to use your word-is telling me they haven't changed. No, Captain. They can't be trusted... and, frankly, now that I realize it, I can't believe that I was considering, for even a mo-ment, becoming what they wanted me to become. in fact,!-"
And that was when all hell broke loose.
iii.
Soleta, shaking her head and choosing to be tolerant of Kebron's general out-of-sorts deportment-something she'd been seeing much more frequently these days- was heading toward the science station when Kebron suddenly said, "Shields just came on!"
Burgoyne had been studying a fuel-consumption re-port, and almost dropped it as s/he sat forward abruptly. Tapping Mr combadge, s/he called "Captain on the deck!" before turning to Morgan and snapping, "Sound red alert. Soleta, get me a reading. If we have incoming, I want to know what it is, and I want to know yesterday."
Soleta didn't need to be told. She moved straight to her science station, only a graceful sidestep preventing her from colliding with Calhoun as he emerged from the ready room, concern on his face. The red-alert klaxon was already sounding as McHenry, having emerged right behind Calhoun, vaulted the railing and slid into his post. "I can't leave for five minutes..." he muttered.
"Captain, detecting massive energy spikes, of the same nature we've been monitoring... only more so," Soleta told him. "Readings are off the scale."
"They're always off the scale," commented McHenry. "We've just to install bigger scales."
"Not now, McHenry. Kebron, talk to me: What have we got?"
"Sensors are detecting incoming at 387 mark two."
"Conn, bring us around. Kebron, nature of the incom-ing."
"Appears to be incoming vessels. Nothing beyond that."
"Soleta... ?"
But the science officer shook her head. "The same scrambling of our sensors that we've been getting from the energy emissions is continuing to block scanners, sir. They do appear to be vessels, as Mr. Kebron re-ported. But s
ize, number, configuration, all remain un-known."
"Can we get a visual on it. Give me something, dammit."
The screen wavered and there, on the screen, were small objects, getting closer by the second. There was silence on the bridge for a long moment, and Calhoun frowned. "What...are those? Wait, that... that's not what I think it is...?"
They drew closer still, the details beginning to take shape.
And Kebron, normally the most stoic and reserved in-dividual on the bridge-the one so phlegmatic that he made Soleta look like a laughing hyena in compari-son-said loudly, "What the frell is that... ?
"Soleta... ?" said Calhoun, but it was clear that he was looking for confirmation of what his disbelieving eyes were telling him.
Star Trek - NF - 12 - Being Human Page 19
