Worlds in Collision

by Judith

  Next, he took a delicate pin and used it to puncture the seal on the second vial, making sure the pinpoint touched the liquid within. He carefully dabbed the pinpoint against one end of the almost invisible strip he had painted, closed the case, and returned the vials to his tunic, just as he had been trained to do.

  He looked quickly around the dilithium lab, ensuring that no trace of his presence existed; he knew that within that blue case, tailored bacteria were already feeding on the nutrients in the painted strip and were preparing to divide at a precisely controlled rate, growing along the strip until they made contact with the other circuit tracing and shorted out the circuit. The bacteria would be reduced to undetectable dust particles and the infinite feedback within the ship’s engines would be devastating.

  Preparing to leave, he caught sight of his reflection in the polished surface of an antimatter storage chamber. It was not the face of his birth, and not the face he had worn on TNC 50 when the Klingon robot had hired him, but such transitions were his way of life. All that mattered was that for now his disguise was once again perfect. None had seen through it.

  And none would be given a chance.

  Eight

  Nensi could hear H’rar’s breath quicken. Good, the chief administrator thought, that means the Andorian sees it, too.

  H’rar looked up from Sal’s office desk screen where Nensi had presented the results of his initial investigation. “Diabolical,” he wheezed. The word was an old Anglish term that the Andorian had recently learned and enjoyed using to describe those complex situations that brought his cobalt blood to the boil. “How shall you restore your honor, Sal?”

  Nensi pushed away from his desk and held up his hands. “Sorry, H’rar, but honor isn’t the issue here.”

  “Honor iss alwayss the issue!” H’rar protested. He toyed with the ceremonial dagger he wore at his side, reduced in size to blend in with his civilian station but offering traditional comfort just the same.

  “If anything, it’s a legal matter to be settled by the Federation and Starfleet. Take another look at the contracts. Technically, the Pathfinders misrepresented nothing.”

  H’rar muttered something in Lesser Andorian.

  “I beg your pardon?” Nensi asked politely, trying to prevent his administrative assistant from entering an icy Andorian sulk.

  H’rar’s thin blue lips compressed into an evil smile. “I just wass reflecting that until my world joined the Federation, our last lawyerss had been put to death more than a thousand yearss ago.” He nodded to himself. “Sometimess the old wayss are so much simpler, don’t you think?”

  “Of course,” Nensi quickly agreed. “But then, you have a knife and I’m not a lawyer, so why wouldn’t I?”

  H’rar laughed. “I shall misss you when you retire, Sal.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll be too busy planning your revenge against the Pathfinders.”

  Mira Romaine appeared in the doorway to Nensi’s office and knocked against the doorframe to announce herself.

  “What’s so urgent?” she asked after she greeted the two and joined them by the desk screen.

  “I was working on that increased access schedule that Pathfinder Eight asked for,” Nensi began, “and I started calculating the upper load that the facility could take. Especially since the standard waiting period these days is about two years.”

  “And…?” Romaine prompted as she scanned the charts displayed on the screen, puzzled over the number of them that carried bizarre figures such as 430 percent.

  “And I think that the Pathfinders have been reconfiguring themselves.”

  Romaine shrugged. “Why not? We study medicine to improve our lives, why shouldn’t they study circuit design and construction to improve theirs?”

  “Well, if you look at these figures, I’m not really sure you’d call it an improvement.” Nensi called up core-use diagrams and pointed out sections now marked in red.

  Romaine studied them but her puzzled expression made it clear that she still couldn’t see the point Sal was trying to make.

  “It was your comment about Pathfinder Six lying to us,” Nensi continued. “You still haven’t explained that to me; why you think Six was lying, or what it could possibly have to lie about. But then I thought, what if its motives are as alien as the way it functions?”

  “So you think these figures and charts are more lies?” Romaine asked.

  “Look,” Nensi said, “let me take you through an example.”

  It took twenty minutes, and only a fifth-level programmer or a career bureaucrat could have traced the convoluted chain of conditions that indicated the Pathfinders had something to hide. Nensi began by running straightforward calculations of the memory size and operational speed of the Pathfinders’ installation to determine a base figure for its storage and work capacity. The figure was staggering.

  Then Nensi ran a simulation that divided the facility into twelve more or less equal units—one for each Pathfinder—and subjected it to the average access load that the interface team imposed in a normal duty cycle. This time the figure was large, but it definitely wasn’t staggering.

  Romaine whistled softly. “Ninety-percent excess capacity?” she read from the screen.

  “If you treat the facility as a duotronic unaware processing engine such as they use on starships—in other words, a standard Fleet-issue computer. I would expect the Pathfinders to be even more efficient, and so the excess capacity could even be larger.”

  Romaine considered the implications for a moment. The mechanics of data storage and retrieval were her speciality and Nensi’s conclusions were almost frightening. If true, duotronic processors seemed to give rise to a geometrical increase in capacity after a certain size threshold had been reached. Since no facility in the Federation came anywhere close to the size of the Pathfinder installation, it was not surprising that the effect had not been noticed until now. But what was incredible was that neither the Pathfinders, nor the interface team, had made it known. It was inconceivable that such a breakthrough in computer science could be knowingly withheld.

  “Your figures must be wrong, Sal,” Romaine concluded, opting for the easiest way of dealing with unexpected results.

  “Even allowing a fifty-percent margin of error, the increased-capacity effect stands,” Nensi argued.

  “Then what you’re saying is that what the Federation is using this facility for right now is like using Fleet commcenter to relay binary codes over a distance of a few kilometers.”

  “And the Pathfinders must know it. And the interface team probably knows it. And neither group is telling us.”

  Romaine requested duplicate files of Nensi’s work and he agreed, provided she would only use them on secured circuits. She said she would run variations on Nensi’s figures and see how well the effect held up.

  “Until then,” Nensi concluded, “I suggest we keep everything in confidence. At least until we find out if our suspicions are correct, and if so, what the Pathfinders and/or the interface team think they’re going to accomplish.”

  As Romaine started to leave, holding a stack of data wafers in one hand, she paused by the door. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is if they do have all of that extra capacity down there, what in the gods’ names are they doing with it?”

  H’rar snorted. “What I don’t understand,” he replied, “iss why you humanss insist on building thinking machiness that have no ‘off’ switches.”

  Nine

  The cavernous hold of the starboard warp propulsion unit thrummed with the rise and fall of the whine from its Cochrane generator. The gleaming mechanism of intricately intertwined tubes and cables stretched almost the full length of the nacelle’s interior, drawing its power from the immense energies released by the total annihilation of matter and antimatter in the main engine room in the secondary hull. But it was here in this resonating chamber that, with no moving parts save for the myriad bypass switches that could be manually engaged, the gener
ator channeled that unthinkable force to split the compressed web of four-dimensional spacetime, and slip the Enterprise along the infinitely small pathways that snaked through otherspace.

  The service-lift doors opened onto the brilliantly lit hold and Scotty felt a familiar rush of exhilaration as the warp vibration engulfed him. The bridge was the brain of the ship, the engine room her heart, but this, aye, this was her soul.

  Professor La’kara was first out of the lift, stumbling slightly in his haste. He had not anticipated the zero-gravity node the turbolift had passed through as it had moved through the support pylon, out of the artificial-gravity field of the secondary hull and into the angled field of the nacelle. He stared down the length of the generator, eyes blinking rapidly, regaining his footing.

  “It…it’s beautiful,” he said, and for once said nothing more.

  “That she is,” Scott agreed, proud father of the bairn. He stood aside to let the others in the lift enter the hold. Fifteen guests, more than he had expected, had shown up for the tour. With all the other activities canceled, perhaps it was to be expected. Scientists were usually among the first to become bored.

  Commodore Wolfe and her aide, Lieutenant Abranand, were the last to exit. Abranand looked down nervously at the radiation medallion he and all the others wore around their necks. Scott had told them it was a standard precaution and that it would alert them to exposure levels equal to one-fiftieth the minimum lethal dose, but the anxious trooper obviously didn’t trust it. He was accompanying Wolfe only under orders.

  The commodore stood with her hands on her hips, admiring the generator. “The lack of vibration is remarkable, Mr. Scott. I don’t think I’ve ever felt any other as smooth.” It was the first time Scott could recall her sounding civil since she had come aboard.

  Scott grinned at the compliment. “Thank ye, Commodore. Things start to get a bit rough around warp five, but at everything below it’s smooth as a…uh, transparent aluminum.” Scotty coughed as the commodore nodded impatiently.

  “Believe it or not, Mr. Scott, but I’ve been in an engine room or two in my day,” she said, grinning slightly at his embarrassment. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

  Scott coughed again, then stepped quickly up to the head of the group. He would have to cut part of the tour short, he knew, because of the delay the commodore had caused as she made them all wait for Academician Sradek to join them. By the time she learned that the elderly historian was indisposed and would not be joining the tour, Scott knew he would not be spending as much time up in the nacelle as he would have liked. Ah well, he’d make the best of it.

  “Gentlebeings,” Scott began, “what ye are looking at is the key component of one of the largest fourth-generation hyperspace engines ever built since the discovery of warp technology more than one hundred and fifty years ago…yes, Dr. Stlur?”

  A young Vulcan male with penetrating eyes and long dark hair tightly pulled back in a thick queue, had raised his hand, interrupting Scott’s standard opening remarks. “I point out that Vulcan scientists mastered the technology of warp drive more than one hundred Terran years earlier. I thought you might wish to add that to your knowledge. I can recommend literature that—”

  T’Vann, the Vulcan female with whom Stlur worked, placed her hand on his shoulder and whispered something inaudible.

  “Forgive me for interrupting your presentation,” Stlur said. “I meant no disrespect.”

  “None taken, lad,” Scott said. “O’ course I should have said since the human discovery of warp technology.”

  “Precisely,” Stlur commented. The female whispered in his ear again.

  “To continue.” Scott deliberately looked away from the Vulcans. “It is called a Cochrane generator, named after Zefrem Cochrane, its human—yes, Professor La’kara?”

  The professor lowered his hand and politely said, “Zeyafram Co’akran, it’s pronounced.” The professor turned to the rest of the group. “Native Alpha Centauran, you know. Great man.”

  Scott sighed. “Aye, Alpha Centauran he was, but we humans do share a common ancestor back there somewhere now, don’t we?”

  La’kara started to fidget with his scarf in a way that Scott had come to dread. “Only if you believe the—”

  “Could we discuss biology at another time?” T’Vann asked. “I should not like to miss an opportunity to examine this generator.”

  “Thank you, Dr. T’Vann,” Scott said in gratitude. Last night La’kara had come to Scott’s cabin to continue the “discussion” about trilithium they had begun just before the starbase troopers had broken up the hangar reception. Scott had used all of his most reasonable arguments, including a bottle of his best single malt, and still hadn’t been able to make the poor man see the light of day. The chief engineer had begun to have his doubts about La’kara’s grasp of elementary multiphysics and was glad of T’Vann’s diplomatic interruption.

  “Why don’t we all walk down to the flux chamber?” Scott said, and motioned the group to a ten-meter silver sphere that bubbled out from the side of the generator. When they arrived, he had Ensign Helena Sulernova open the thickly screened viewing port on the sphere’s lower section. Sulernova looked grim as she lifted the cover on the control panel. She had overindulged at the reception, thinking that sleeping in on this, her free day, would take care of the results. But Mr. Scott had chosen her for today’s drudge duty, he had explained, as her reward for asking about trilithium in the presence of Professor La’kara and himself at the reception.

  Sulernova, holding back a yawn, punched in an authorization code, then threw the interlock bolt aside. She waited for the viewport indicator to show that the transparent viewing medium had darkened enough to provide sufficient protection for human eyes, then pressed the control that slid the viewport protective plate away from the opening.

  Scott forgot his annoyance with the ensign as the tour group gasped at the beauty of the Cochrane flux, shimmering and sparkling in its wild explosions of unrecognizable colors, which seemed to float mere centimeters before their eyes in a multidimensional optical illusion. The Vulcans, of course, didn’t gasp or show any reaction at all, though Scott was sure he detected fascination in their eyes.

  “What ye are seeing is the interference effect of a thin strand of hyperspace folded into our four-dimensional continuum,” Scott explained. “The fields generated here fold our ship back into the hyperspace void left by the absence of this—”

  “Mr. Scott!” It was Lieutenant Abranand, white-faced with fear, holding up his radiation medallion. The central indicator was glowing red and its warning beep was shrill.

  Scott immediately checked his own medallion and those of the others he could see. Each was dark and silent. “Occh, lad. Ye’ve been fiddling with it so much it’s nae wonder that the poor thing’s gone and—”

  The ship lurched!

  Scotty froze as every medallion instantly glowed red and their sirens shrieked in a deafening cacophony of danger. The smooth vibration of the Cochrane generator turned to a ragged shudder and, to his trained senses, every improper movement, every grinding of overstressed hull metal, told Scott exactly what had gone wrong. The engineer went into full automatic. This was his job.

  “Commodore! Get these people to the lift! Ensign! Close the port.”

  Sulernova ran through a flurry of flux shimmers to the port controls. Her fingers flew over the buttons and switches.

  “Don’t look at it!” Scott shouted to her. He opened the equipment locker by the flux sphere and pulled out a three-pronged energy neutralizer. He had to close the flux gate before all power failed and the full brilliance of the flux was released.

  The ship shuddered again, its inertial dampeners lagging behind the instantaneous response of the artificial-gravity field, throwing Scott and the tour group to the deck. Red warning lights flashed along the shining surfaces of the generator. Emergency sirens howled.

  “Get them out of here now!” Scott shouted to the
commodore. She was standing at the entrance to the service lift, pushing the civilians to safety. Scott saw Stlur and T’Vann pick up the lagging La’kara by his arms and start to carry him. And then the power failed completely and the brilliant lighting of the hold cut out to the absolute black of starless space.

  But the darkness didn’t last. An instant later, the powerless viewport medium cleared to absolute transparency, and the full and blinding glory of the Cochrane flux filled the hold.

  Kirk pushed himself off the deck rail where the lurching ship had tossed him. “Damage report!” he called out to Uhura. All lights on the bridge dimmed as a low-frequency rumble shuddered through the deck.

  “Switching to auxiliary,” Lieutenant Laskey announced from the engineering station. The lights flared up again and the hum of equipment returned to normal.

  “Helm, full shields,” Kirk ordered. Whatever had hit the ship had felt just like an energy-beam impact.

  “Warp power gone, Captain. Dropping to sublight,” Sulu said, concentrating on the maneuvers that would bring the ship into normal space properly aligned, without being torn to pieces by the shock of an unbalanced translation.

  “Shields on auxiliary power,” Chekov reported from the science station. “Half strength and holding.”

  “Where’s that damage report, Uhura?” Kirk was standing behind Sulu, staring at the main sensor display. No attackers to be seen.

  Uhura held her ear receiver as she listened intently to the rush of voices and computer codes reporting ship’s status. “It seems to be a power failure localized in engineering, Captain. Engineering communication circuits are down. No hull damage or weapon impact reported.”