“We cannot allow the Federrazsh’n to annex any worlds in Gorn Hegemony space,” Zegrroz’rh snarled.
Once again, Z’shezhira found that she was speaking almost without consciously willing it. “Officially, this system lies far outside Gorn space, First Myrmidon.”
Gog’resssh released a small roar, which made Z’shezhira flinch. “No system is outside Gorn space, officially or otherwise, until I make that determination.”
He really wants to fight them, Z’shezhira thought, astonished at the workings of the mind of a war-caster, albeit a damaged one. Even though these Federrazsh’n mammals never seem to attack unless attacked first—even though they’ve forged mutually beneficial alliances with us in times past—he’s going to let Zegrroz’rh goad him into doing this.
Though she was tempted by the possibility that such a tack might finally put them all out of their misery once and for all, Z’shezhira decided to cast her lot with staying alive—at least for now.
But would Gog’resssh allow her to calm him down this time?
“First Myrmidon,” she began, “need I remind you that these creatures come from the very same Federrazsh’n that somehow managed to end the threat of the galaxy’s entire population of machine-mammals?” Or that this very vessel, she thought, was one of the ships intimately involved in obtaining that victory?
“Watch them, but continue to keep us out of their sight,” Gog’resssh said at length, much to Zegrroz’rh’s evident disappointment. “For now, we will follow where they go, like a shadow.”
GORN HEGEMONY RECONNAISSANCE VESSEL SSEVARRH
S’syrixx knew he was concealing his impatience as the engineering team ran the final tests on the consoles that Captain Krassrr had set up along the perimeter of the observation deck. The panoramic crysmetal window revealed the ancient alien artifact, framing the flat, meteoroid-pitted platform that formed its base as well as the tall, needle-like structure that towered over it like the trunk of some colossal and impossibly straight tree. The platform was oriented to be parallel with the surface of the blue-green planet that was turning serenely below.
A planet that had evidently felt this artifact’s touch on at least one previous occasion.
Setting up the experiment had required three full rotations of the planet, during which technical challenge had piled upon technical challenge. The science and engineering teams had, after all, been asked to do the all but impossible. But in the end, they had pulled off a successful, if low-powered, initial test; despite the apparently advanced state of decay of the alien equipment, the vacuum of space had entombed it well enough to make it relatively easy to render at least partially operational once again.
After an initial circuit failure had prompted Captain Krassrr to direct a withering, bug-eyed glance in S’syrixx’s direction—which had, in turn, prompted R’rerrgran’s quiet offer of a mild sedative to S’syrixx—the ancient platform awakened, summoning a primordial lightning that might have frightened even Egg Bringer S’Yahazah herself.
The energy beam appeared wide enough to have instantly cleaved through all six ships in the science convoy simultaneously. Although S’syrixx had to avert his eyes like everyone else on the Ssevarrh’s observation deck (except perhaps for Krassrr and his bug-eyed war-caste peers), he vividly imagined the beam lancing down to the planet’s surface to near-instantaneous effect. Putting the almost agonizing brilliance out of his mind as best he could, S’syrixx tried to concentrate instead on his console’s readouts, one of which consisted of a clock intended to prevent the ancient platform’s hastily restored circuits from overheating and destroying themselves.
Not eager to displease or disappoint Krassrr, S’syrixx transmitted the cutoff command to the platform when the short, conservatively prescribed span of time had elapsed. He was gratified a moment later that he hadn’t found himself tumbling into the airless vacuum beyond the windows, a victim of some unforeseen catastrophic failure of overstrained alien technology.
He felt even more gratified two dayturns later when the latest atmospheric and soil tests confirmed that the test-firing of the artifact had indeed increased the net life-supporting potential of the planet below, at least in the one small, sheltered valley that had been encompassed by the device’s brief operation.
Later, R’rerrgran accompanied S’syrixx back to the wide observation deck, which now was thankfully free of scowling, impatient war-casters; those worthies were now busy providing muscle to the engineering teams, which even now were proceeding with the delicate task of attaching a complex lattice of tractor beams to the ages-old alien ecosculpting platform. S’syrixx watched through the great crysmetal windows as the faintly glowing beams lanced out at the venerable structure, grasping it with a surprisingly gentle touch.
“Imagine,” R’rerrgran said in an awe-tinged, breathy growl. “That device is capable of rearranging matter on a submolecular level. Molding whole worlds to accommodate whatever biochemical demands we care to make.”
“The war-casters may have a new crècheworld sooner than they had dreamed possible,” S’syrixx said, watching as the flotilla prepared to tow the device away from what might well be the only world it had known since its construction perhaps half a million suncircuits ago. “Once the device is ready for use on a planetary scale, of course.”
“Of course,” R’rerrgran said. “I am certain that Captain Krassrr has every confidence that you will make that possible in due course.”
S’syrixx experienced a surge of relief; R’rerrgran seemed to be implying that the war-casters needed time to decide upon the first and most appropriate world to transform from “almost right” to “just right” as the replacement for the late, lamented Sazssgrerrn crècheworld. Even given the recent successes of the science and engineering teams, powering up the ecosculpting platform enough to subject an entire planet to the device’s full metamorphic effects would be no small achievement. Given enough time, S’syrixx knew that he and his colleagues could do a great deal to reduce, if not eliminate, the chance of some random malfunction bringing this entire endeavor to a premature and catastrophic end. If only the war-casters could be counted upon not to decide to rush matters. . . .
“Which planets are being considered for the next phase of this project?” S’syrixx said.
R’rerrgran’s neck and brow scales rose inquisitively. “Planets? Plural?”
“Yes. The list of worlds on which we might do further testing.”
“I think you may have misunderstood me, S’syrixx. There is no ‘list’ of which I am aware.”
S’syrixx could feel his heavy eyeridges folding forward in irritation. “There has to be a list. And the next destination Captain Krassrr has selected for testing the device has to be on it.”
“Oh, the device is definitely bound for a destination,” R’rerrgran said, his flaring nostrils conveying a look of comprehension. “But I’m told that Krassrr expects to fully deploy the technology there.”
“Where?” S’syrixx said, an inchoate anxiety stiffening his neck scales. He upbraided himself for being deluded enough to think that Krassrr might remain reasonable, especially when his now-endangered caste had so much at stake.
Although no one other than the two tech-casters was present on the observation deck, R’rerrgran leaned toward S’syrixx conspiratorially and spoke in a low growl. “It’s a planet known as Hranrar.”
Confusion caught up with S’syrixx’s irritation and passed it. “Hranrar? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Neither have I. Is that really surprising, S’syrixx? Stellar cartography is neither your primary discipline nor mine.”
Hranrar. All S’syrixx knew about it was that the name had an unfamiliar, non-sibilant alien stink to it. Somehow, that name sounded insufficiently Gorn to be appropriate as a test bed for the Gorn Hegemony’s newly acquired and still unreliable ecosculpting technology, let alone as a replacement for Sazssgrerrn.
Determined to discover why an alien place name he’d never hear
d before struck him in this manner, S’syrixx walked to an alcove near one of the bulkheads to consult a data terminal. He tapped into the stellar cartography files and swiftly located Hranrar, whose system lay in yet another remote hinterland of Gorn territory.
Claws of pure dread closed tightly about his heart when the stellar cartographic find directed him to the sociological database for more information.
R’rerrgran’s claws clattered on the duranium deck plating as he approached. “What’s the matter, S’syrixx? Your scales look as white as the hide of an Outer Eliar salamander.”
S’syrixx ignored his friend as he continued reading the surprisingly lengthy entry on Hranrar. “This can’t be correct, R’rerrgran. According to this, there’s already a thriving civilization on Hranrar.”
“That is unfortunate,” R’rerrgran said. He smelled of both sorrow and fatalism.
“‘Unfortunate’? Do you understand what this means? If you’re right, if Krassrr really is planning to do a full eco-sculpt on Hranrar, then an entire civilization will be wiped out, probably in less than a dayturn.”
R’rerrgran’s great scaled head drooped in a melancholic fashion. “Such, apparently, is the will of both the warrior and political castes, S’syrixx. And probably the leadership of our own, for that matter. After all, who else could have determined that Hranrar’s environment is the one world in the entirety of Gorn space that is most likely to serve as the new Sazssgrerrn?”
Who else indeed, S’syrixx thought, but a famously impatient warrior caste?
Assuming his friend’s question to be purely rhetorical, S’syrixx declined to answer it. Instead he turned his gaze back toward the broad windows and the spacescape beyond. The alien ecosculpting platform was already slowly moving out of orbit, pulled toward its date with destiny by the complicated webwork of coruscating tractor beams that each ship in the recon flotilla was generating in tandem operation.
The Gorn Hegemony’s complex ecosystem of complementary castes and subcastes would soon be made whole again with the creation of a new warrior-caste crècheworld.
All it would cost was another civilization’s very existence.
“Do not torment yourself, my friend,” R’rerrgran said, speaking as though he had read S’syrixx’s mind. “It is the way of the universe, as old as life itself. There are always winners and losers. Predators and prey. The eaters and the eaten.”
S’syrixx looked sadly at his friend. “Survival is a zero-sum game?”
“In my experience that is usually so,” R’rerrgran said.
S’syrixx nodded, fighting to keep his scales from bristling. There was no point in rousing suspicions, even among his closest confidants.
Perhaps not this time, my friend, he thought as he watched the ecosculpting platform disappear from his line of sight, to be replaced by some of the Ssevarrh’s sister ships as the flotilla arranged itself for warp travel. The stars smeared into streaks as the towing convoy coordinated its transition from sublight to superluminal speeds.
Perhaps not this time.
4
U.S.S. TITAN
Captain’s Log, Stardate 59641.5
The second “Doornail” we’ve run across since our return to the Vela OB2 Association—this one located in the system officially designated Vela OB2–396—has proved to be every bit as dead as the first one, but perhaps a little more habitable. Our close-range scans and surveys turned up two other important differences as well: one is the presence of traces of sentient-manufactured alloys and artifacts in orbit around this dead-yet-likely-artificially-engineered world; and the other is evidence that someone else has visited this place recently. Titan’s sensors have picked up strong impulse signatures and vestigial warp trails, along with particle emissions consistent with the use of a powerful tractor beam. Unfortunately, factors such as the local system’s intense solar wind and the powerful local planetary magnetic fields have effectively scattered most of these emissions, making it difficult, at best, to determine the heading of these visitors when they left the system.
So far, I have only questions. Has someone else found something significant here just before our arrival, such as the extremely powerful ancient terraforming artifact that our science team suspects may once have been used to create so many life-capable worlds throughout this sector of space?
And more importantly, has somebody recently dragged such an artifact away from this system?
Since the gamma shift encompassed the small hours of the ship’s night, the lights on Titan’s sparsely crewed bridge were reduced almost to twilight levels. Riker sat back in his command chair and tried to let the diminished bridge illumination relax him, since nothing else he had tried this evening had succeeded in getting him anywhere near striking distance of sleep. On the main viewer, the second Doornail world continued its slow, oblivious rotation several hundred klicks below Titan.
Lieutenant Commander Tamen Gibruch, the scheduled gamma-shift watch officer, had expressed surprise at the captain’s unexpected appearance at such a late hour. The Chandir officer’s prominent facial brow wrinkled in apparent worry until Riker explained that he wasn’t checking up on him.
“I’ve just decided to see if a little extra work will cure insomnia better than warm milk does,” Riker told him, not straying terribly far from the plain truth. Ever since he’d become aware of the possibility that a supernally powerful planet-altering technology might be literally wandering through—or might have been deliberately taken from—this part of the galaxy, he’d found it extremely difficult to relax at all, let alone sleep. And since there was no use in letting his own futile tossing and turning jeopardize Deanna and the baby’s sleep, here he was.
Ensign Dakal suddenly half rose from behind the main science console, his usually subdued voice now buoyant upon an uncommon enthusiasm. “Captain, I think we’ve established an outbound direction for one of the warp trails.”
Riker heaved a sigh of relief as he checked out the redundant readouts on the right arm of his command chair. Sure enough, the young Cardassian’s declaration looked promising; the navigation computer had drawn a bold yellow line that represented the best estimate of the most recent path taken by another warp-powered vessel out of the Vela OB2–396 system, Titan’s present location.
More than seven solid hours of continuous scanning and analysis may have finally paid off. “Ensign, you’re a magician,” Riker said, favoring the youthful sensor analyst with a small grin.
Dakal’s gray skin turned ashen with evident embarrassment at the attention. “I’m afraid I can’t take all the credit, sir. The trail is dilute enough to be virtually undetectable. If I hadn’t had the benefit of Chaka’s search-algorithm enhancements and overall number-crunching, I’d still be groping in the dark.”
With a nod Riker acknowledged the invisible yet critical contribution of Crewman K’Chak’!’op, the Pak’shree information specialist whose native language—including her name—was simply beyond the capabilities of Titan’s human minority and humanoid plurality. As a compromise, and a bridge between the culture of the arachnidlike computer scientist and those of the various other members of Titan’s crew, most everyone aboard called her “Chaka” by way of approximating “K’Chak’!’op.” The Pak’shree, by contrast, could speak Federation Standard by means of an electronic vocoder that transformed her movements and mouthpart stridulations into humanoid-intelligible speech. Sometimes the content of that speech proved exasperating, steeped as it often was in the matriarchal assumptions of the Pak’shree.
“I’ll bet she told you that you’re a credit to your gender for being able to keep up with her, Ensign,” said Chief Axel Bolaji, who ran the flight-control console during the night watch.
Dakal looked offended, but Riker thought he might have been kidding. “That’s exactly what she said. You have to take such things in the spirit in which they’re intended.”
I suppose you can take the spider out of the nest, but you can’t always take the nest out of t
he spider, Riker thought. He was aware of how tough it was for Pak’shree females to take males of any species seriously, given the fact that for Pak’shree “maleness” was simply a transitory juvenile phase, to be sloughed off when the immature males metamorphosed into fully adult Pak’shree females.
“Where does the trail lead, Ensign?” Riker wanted to know.
Dakal paused for a moment to consult another display. “Projecting what we know of the departure trajectory, my best estimate is Vela OB2–404, which is less than two parsecs away. We’ll need to run continuous long-range scans along the way, of course, to make certain we’re still on the correct heading.”
“Planets?”
“Yes, sir. According to Commander Pazlar’s stellar cartographic data, the system contains a mix of gas giants and terrestrial planets, all laid out in stable, almost circular orbits. Vela OB2–404 strongly resembles the Sol system in that regard.”
Riker wondered what would lay at the end of the trail. Another Doornail? The ultimate power of creation? Or something else entirely, something utterly unanticipated and unforeseeable?
Fortunately, he knew he didn’t have to limit his options to merely wondering. Just as when he played the trombone in his holodeck recreation of the New Orleans jazz scene, he had the authority to call the tune.
“Let’s take this one from the top, Mister Bolaji,” Riker said. “And make our best speed that won’t lose the trail.”
“Aye, sir,” Bolaji said as he worked his console.
“Take it away.”
Although SecondGen White-Blue lacked his friend Torvig’s discomfiture with microgravity environments, he acceded to the Choblik’s request that he keep the gravity levels set at Titan’s standard one-g value during their current shift together in the stellar cartography lab. Since Commander Pazlar was presently in her quarters, presumably engaging in the regular pattern of nocturnal dormancy that appeared to characterize most humanoids, there was no reason to maintain the freefall conditions that Pazlar’s delicate physiology required. In addition, the Choblik’s comfort would probably make him far less distractible should the errant signal reappear—
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Seize the Fire Page 6
