“Cap’n!” Jevlin roared. “Y’re going against every lesson we’ve learned, and y’haven’t answered a single question.”
This time, Arit silenced her friend with a piercing look. When she replied, her voice was quiet. “I have one answer, for all objections. My instincts tell me that these people are different . . . that they can be trusted. Besides, you both overlook a critical reality. We don’t have the power to stop the Enterprise from doing whatever Captain Picard chooses.”
“All right, Cap’n . . . all right,” Jevlin said, scratching the stubble on his chin. “Let’s say that’s true. What do we do then?”
“Nothing, Jev. Nothing at all. We wait to see if the Enterprise succeeds in eliciting some comprehensible response from whatever intelligence may live on this planet.”
“Hmmm,” Jevlin chuckled. “Maybe that’s not so bad. If whatever’s down there gets riled enough, they’ll strike back at the Enterprise, maybe do away with ‘er . . . and maybe we’ll be left to do as we please. I like that . . . yes, I think I do.”
“It’s down this way,” Gina called back over her shoulder. Her voice echoed off the rocks as she trotted ahead of Data and Ken, skipping from side to side as she traversed the rough tunnel floor, yet maintaining her footing with the casual grace of a mountain goat. “I’m sure of it . . . we’re almost there.”
“Gina,” Data said, “do not get too far ahead.”
But she was right. The tunnel led around a bend, banked down and took them directly to the cavern containing the shuttlecraft. Gina burst into the cave like a marathon runner breaking the tape and threw herself into the arms of a surprised Wesley Crusher as he and Counselor Troi waited beside the shuttle.
Deanna looked Ken and Gina over. “Other than being a little dusty, you two look none the worse for your unauthorized exploration.”
“They appear to be fine,” Data said.
“Wait until you hear what we saw,” Gina bubbled. But something caught her eye at the far end of the cavern. “Ohmygod—look!”
As she pointed, the others turned to follow her finger. Two of the mysterious sparkles turned lazy circles in the shadows just below the cave ceiling.
“They weren’t there a minute ago,” Wesley said as he took a few cautious steps closer.
Two more sparkles flared into being, as if invisible hands had just struck a pair of matches. Then still others appeared, singly, in twos and threes, floating or dancing in the air above the away team, in a cavern soon brightened by the shivering silver glow of at least three dozen bits of glittering light.
Then they began to swirl and tumble, and they spun out their multicolored strands of pure light, streamers that spiraled and met and blended, seeming to create intricate designs that lasted only seconds before drifting apart.
“It’s gorgeous,” Gina whispered. “It’s like . . . like living art.”
“But it looks so random,” Wesley said. “I wish it would find a shape and hold it.”
“It may look random, Wesley,” Data said, “but it is not. I have been able to identify forty-two distinct designs that repeat with a stable cyclic frequency of two one-hundredths of a second.”
Wesley gave the android a double take. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
“Data, that’s incredible.”
“And far too rapid for the human brain’s capacity for comprehension,” Data said. “In addition, it appears that new designs are being added to the totality at a regular rate. Such a complex structure that is both consistent and variable suggests—”
“Suggests intelligence,” Troi said softly as she gazed at the colored strands.
They all turned to look at her, and Data nodded. “Yes, that is what I was going to say, Counselor. Are you able to sense anything definitive?”
She edged closer to the astounding light show. A brilliant green tendril suddenly reached out and brushed her shoulder, almost flirting with her. Troi gasped in surprise, but remained in place, watching as it curled back on itself, as if beckoning her to join it.
“I do sense—” Deanna took a deep breath. “Life. Not life as I’ve ever experienced it before. But I do believe they are life-forms . . . and I believe they are sentient.”
Data came up beside her, his pale eyes wide with childlike wonder. “Most intriguing . . .”
Egin entered one of the Glin-Kale’s observation areas, illuminated only by a pale shaft of starlight coming through the oval window. Not exactly a large chamber to begin with, it had been converted to storage like most other open spaces on the old ship. Crates and barrels were piled from deck to ceiling, leaving only a small clear area directly in front of the windows.
It wasn’t much, but at least here he could peek out at the stars and the vast void around them, and find some momentary relief from the pervasive sensation of being crushed together with all the other refugees. The need for such relief was widespread, and there were too many people aboard and too few observation areas, so Captain Arit had been forced to establish a rule: to ensure reasonable access, no one could remain in any observation nook for more than fifteen minutes.
At some times, there would be long lines of Tenirans waiting for a turn at a window. But Egin found this chamber blessedly empty and he shuffled in—and promptly tripped over a pair of legs protruding from between a couple of supply crates. Egin’s hands flew out and caught hold of a barrel before he could fall.
“Oww!” snarled the owner of the legs as he struggled to get up. His silhouette rose before the observation window. It was First Officer Jevlin. “Don’t you watch where y’r stepping, Egin?”
“I—I’m sorry,” said the flustered official. Then he smelled the peroheen wine on Jevlin’s breath and frowned in annoyance—why am I to blame? “You shouldn’t be lying in ambush, you drunken sack!”
Jevlin clenched one fist—the one not holding the bottle—and gave serious consideration to cold-cocking Egin before another word was said. But the purple wine tasted so good after all the time he had been away from it that his hostility was overcome by a rush of comradeship. As he reached out with his free hand, Egin flinched, obviously expecting what Jevlin had initially thought of delivering.
But the fist had relaxed, and Jevlin clamped a nonhostile hand on Egin’s shoulder. “There’s enough room for two here. Seems to be an off-hour for observin’ the stars.”
Egin remained wary, unaccustomed to anything resembling a welcome from the old first officer. They stood at the window in uneasy truce, both looking out at the tranquil globe the Glin-Kale orbited.
“I thought you’d given up the peroheen,” Egin said.
“So did I. But special occasions call for special measures, eh?” He held the bottle of purple liquid up, offering to share that as well as the window.
Egin hesitated, then shrugged. “Oh, why not?” He accepted the bottle, and took a swig.
“So,” Jevlin said after a silent pause, “what do you think is going to happen?”
“I honestly don’t know. What do you think?”
“You’re asking me?” Jevlin took the bottle back and helped himself to a thoughtful sip. “I’m just a star sailor. What do I know about momentous decisions? That’s your department, eh?”
Egin’s expression softened into an ironic smile. “No, not really. I know you and the captain think I’m a pompous fool. And you’re right. Sometimes I am. But not so much the fool that I don’t know why I’m the First Valend—because I happened to survive.”
Jevlin chuckled. “Is that wine, or truth serum?”
“Do you know what I like the most about being First Valend?”
“No . . . what?”
“That it makes my grandson proud of me. If that planet out there does turn out to be our new home—or some other planet does—what I would most like to do is tell stories to the children.”
“Stories?” Jevlin said with a quizzical squint.
“Yes. Tell them what Tenira was like. Somebody has to do that, to keep t
he past alive—the good things, especially. God knows we’ve seen enough of the bad. There aren’t that many of us left who remember the old days, Jevlin.”
Jevlin pursed his lips and let out a contemplative belch. “You mean, like you and me. Hmm. I guess you’re right about that. Hmm. Y’know, we’re agreeing more’n we used to.”
“So we are,” Egin said with a nod. “Miracles do happen.”
“I suppose.”
“Now it’s your turn, Jevlin.”
“My turn for what?”
Egin held the bottle high. “Truth serum.”
“Oh.” Jevlin’s brow scrunched into a grudging frown. “Fair is fair, I suppose. Well . . . when you mentioned your grandson, I was thinking at least you’ve got a family. It’s been many a year since I sat down with kin. They’re all gone now. I don’t really have anyone to tell my stories to.”
“They don’t have to be told to blood kin, Jevlin. Most anyone would listen. I’ll wager you’ve got some interesting tales to tell.”
“Mmm . . . I’m not so sure about that.”
“We’ll have to let our audience judge, once we’ve got someplace to call home. Thanks for the wine.”
“Don’t mention it . . . especially to Cap’n Arit. I’d hate to disillusion her about my willpower.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I DON’T KNOW how you do it, Captain,” Riker said as they sat side by side at the heart of the Enterprise bridge.
“What is that, Number One?”
“I don’t know how you wait so patiently at times like this.”
Picard’s eyes twinkled with a glint of amusement. “Didn’t some elderly schoolmistress ever tell you in your youth that patience is a virtue?”
“I do recall one teacher using those very words, sir,” Riker said with a sly smile. “Elizabeth Fallon . . . and she was anything but elderly.”
“I take it the seed of her suggestion did not take root?”
“Not exactly. If anything, she made me more impatient.”
“How so?”
Riker stretched his long legs. “I was fourteen . . . she was twenty-five . . . and I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to go out with women like her.”
Picard chuckled, but the quiet moment was cut short by Worf’s rumbling voice from the tactical station behind them. “We are ready, sir.”
Geordi La Forge stood at the Klingon’s shoulder. “It’s the planetary equivalent of tapping ’em on the shoulder, Captain. No damage potential to the planet or anything down there.”
“Phasers set for wide beam dispersion,” Worf said, “random targeting at five-second intervals, power levels at point-five percent—”
“And shields at maximum power,” Geordi added.
“Very well, gentlemen,” Picard said, leaning back in the command seat. “Initiate firing sequence.”
Geordi returned to his engineering alcove and Worf keyed the computer to follow the preprogrammed sequence.
From her bridge aboard the Glin-Kale, Captain Arit watched in thoughtful silence as a pair of phaser beams lanced out from the Enterprise saucer section, aimed at the planet surface below, specifically the region around the missing shuttle’s last campsite. For five seconds at a time, each beam struck a spot on Domarus, then bounced harmlessly to new coordinates.
Jevlin stood alongside the operations console at Arit’s left and peered over the shoulder of Mahdolin, the young woman still on watch at that post. Together, they watched sensor reports on what the Enterprise was doing.
“I can spit with more power than they’re using, Cap’n,” the old first officer said disdainfully.
“That’s the idea,” Arit said, her eyes never wavering from the main viewscreen. “If there is anything down there, Picard doesn’t want this to look like an attack.”
“More like a tickle,” Mahdolin muttered.
“Mind your post,” Arit said.
“Yes, Captain.”
“I agree with the girl,” said Jevlin. “I don’t know what Picard thinks this is going to accomplish.”
Arit leaned forward, elbows propped on her knees. “We’ll soon find out.”
The gentle volley lasted one minute, then ceased. Picard stood and turned toward Geordi’s monitoring station. “Any results, Mr. La Forge?”
The chief engineer shook his head. “Negative, Captain. No response at all. Should we advance to level two?”
“No need for haste,” said Picard. “Why don’t we see what happens if we repeat phase one.”
Worf restarted the computer-controlled cycle of phaser firings, and the captain watched on the viewer as crisp bolts of energy shot from his starship down to the planet. Picard knew the low intensity of these brief phaser bursts would barely ruffle the long hilltop grass bowing before a Domaran breeze. Unfortunately, he could not know whether this theoretical sentient life for which they searched would notice.
“Ahh,” Picard murmured, interrupting his own musing. “What do you make of that, Will?”
Riker got to his feet and joined Picard beneath the bridge’s central dome as they watched the viewscreen with growing interest. In the midst of this second volley, they saw the sudden formation of what appeared to be a force field just above the Domaran surface. Patches of pulsing energy bloomed at the point of phaser impact, intercepted the phaser beams as they sliced through the planet’s atmosphere, then converted them into haphazard knots of energy which simply reflected back out into space before dissipating into an iridescent mist.
“Maybe we are getting somebody’s attention down there after all,” Riker said as the computer completed the programmed firing sequence. “Geordi, analysis?”
La Forge referred to his instrument readouts. “Visually, the effect looks a little different, but the fingerprint of the structural particle pattern is virtually identical to the chromatic energy pulses we’ve been encountering all along.”
“Good . . . very good indeed,” Picard said. “Then this response we have just seen may very well be coming from the same source as the chromatic energy phenomenon.”
“Well, I’ll be darned,” Geordi said out loud, though his tone made it clear he was talking to himself as he skimmed some new data printing out on his screen.
Riker looked over to him. “Geordi, what is it?”
“Whatever formed that reflective force shield wound up absorbing sixty percent of the energy in those phaser beams.”
Picard and Riker both circled up the deck ramp and approached La Forge’s engineering console. “Absorbing?” Picard repeated. “Wouldn’t it be normal for a large percentage of the phaser energy to be lost in such a process of reflection?”
“Yes, sir, except.”
“Except what?” Riker wanted to know.
Creases of amazement crossed Geordi’s forehead. “For the first twenty seconds of the shield’s reaction, it actually managed to reflect all of our phaser energy— one hundred percent—which is more than a little unusual. Then, within one second, the percentage of reflected energy dropped right down to forty percent, with no variability after that for as long as our firing continued.”
Captain Picard frowned. “Where did the missing sixty percent go?”
“I’d say it went right into whatever was creating the force shield.”
“Lieutenant Worf,” Riker said, turning to the security chief, “what readings are you getting from that force shield now that we’ve stopped firing?”
Worf’s shoulders hunched as he checked and rechecked the ship’s sensors. “No readings at all, Commander . . . as if the shield no longer exists.”
“Are there any power readings from any kind of local generator,” Riker asked, “or any power source that might be producing this shield?”
“Negative. There are no power readings now of any sort.”
“What about before we started firing?” said Riker.
“Nothing, sir—before or after our firing sequence.”
“Only during,” Riker said. “This is damned
strange, Captain. There’s no previous sign of this kind of power generation—then this force shield just pops into existence out of nowwhere—still without a detectable source of power.”
“Strange indeed,” Picard agreed with a thoughtful grunt as he considered these latest observations. Something down on Domarus had managed to project an effective force shield—and proceeded to absorb the Enterprise’s phaser energy. Interesting, but by no means conclusive. And the results of this initial experiment had failed to produce any progress toward Picard’s main goals—establishing communication with any Domaran life-forms, and rescuing the missing away team and shuttle.
The captain let out a determined breath. “Mr. La Forge, Mr. Worf—advance to level two.”
“Aye, sir,” Geordi replied. “Five percent phaser power, ten seconds per target coordinate.”
“Ready, Captain,” Worf said.
Picard nodded as he and Riker returned to their seats. “Fire.”
Again, the ship’s phaser banks cut loose. This time, the protective shield hugging the planet appeared almost immediately. The results were the same— phaser energy deflected without harm. This time, though, with the increased intensity of the incoming weapon beams, the rebounding energy mist reached considerably farther out into space.
Picard and Riker both noted that response. “If full-power weaponry were fired at this protective barrier,” Picard said, “I wonder if the reflection would endanger the attacking vessel?”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” Riker said. “That would make this—whatever it is—a pretty effective passive defense system. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out how effective.”
“Captain,” Geordi said, “this time, it absorbed seventy percent of our phaser energy.”
“Hmm. Where is all this absorbed energy going?”
“Good question, sir,” Geordi agreed.
“See if you can find an answer to it.”
“I’m already working on it, Captain.”
The light show in the cavern continued unabated, now filling a sizable volume from floor to ceiling. Wesley, Gina and Ken had fanned out with activated tricorders, scanning and recording everything from different angles.
Perchance to Dream Page 17
