Orion's Hounds

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “But what’s the evolutionary incentive for warp drive?” Norellis asked.

  “It would give a clear survival advantage,” Eviku said. “Cosmozoans need energy and matter to feed on, and that means star systems, which are light-years apart. And it allows much faster escape from cosmic disasters.”

  Jaza worked the controls for the multispatial sensor array, studying its readings. “It looks as though the distortion generators extend partly into subspace. Although the rest of the star-jellies are strictly three-dimensional.”

  “Could the generators once have been autonomous organisms that the jellies incorporated into their anatomy?” Orilly asked. “Like the mitochondria in humanoid cells?”

  “Or they could’ve been added by someone later,” Norellis countered. “I mean, that’s obviously the more likely answer.”

  “Too many wrong ideas have been called obvious in the past, Kent,” said Jaza. “It’s not a word I like to hear in my department. We should at least consider possible natural explanations for their traits before we assume they must be artificial.”

  “Yeah, okay,” the human said, mildly chastened—but not silenced. “Still, what kind of natural explanation could there be for evolving transporters and replicators?”

  “Well, let’s consider that possibility.” Jaza brought up his scans from aboard the Pa’haquel ship and during the battles, and compared them with readings from the Enterprise-D’s encounter at Deneb. “There—that looks like a telekinetic component in their transporter signature. During their transformations, too.”

  “I suppose,” Orilly said, “that a sufficiently advanced telekinetic brain could be able to manipulate matter on a molecular level.”

  “Particularly when it’s as large as a starship’s saucer,” Eviku added.

  “Yes. And if it had the ability to harness subspace fields, couldn’t it telekinetically transmit matter through subspace and achieve teleportation?”

  Jaza raised a brow. “We can’t rule out the possibility.”

  “Still, it doesn’t seem very probable, does it?” Norellis asked.

  “Well, how about this,” said Eviku. “Given their ability to transform their own bodies as needed, it’s possible that ancient star-jellies could have observed starships performing such tasks as teleportation and warp propulsion and then created their own equivalents. Even if these traits are artificial, it doesn’t mean someone designed them to serve as ships.”

  Norellis mulled that over. “I guess that’s possible. But then, how do you explain the smooth floors, and the corridor lights?”

  “They’re naturally bioluminescent,” Eviku said. “It’s only natural that the light could be seen through translucent internal membranes. As for the floors…hmm, maybe they’re smooth to facilitate the purging of contaminants—so that nothing gets stuck in a depression where it can linger and cause damage.”

  “It’s a stretch.”

  “Yes, it is.” The Arkenite sighed and turned to Jaza. “The star-jellies have a strong taboo against desecrating the dead, right?”

  “Quite right.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that taboo would include an exception for autopsies done in the name of scientific enlightenment?”

  “No, I rather doubt it.”

  “We could at least beam over and take a closer look, couldn’t we?” Norellis asked. “Maybe take a few little tissue samples? They wouldn’t have to know.”

  “It wouldn’t be proper,” Jaza said firmly. “Science is no excuse for disrespect toward others’ spiritual beliefs.”

  “So it’s all right to stay ignorant? That doesn’t sound like science-officer thinking.”

  Jaza smiled. “I believe that science and faith are compatible quests for enlightenment. There’s always a way to serve them both.” At the moment, though, he had to admit he couldn’t think of one. He could sympathize with Norellis’s temptation to autopsy the star-jelly from the inside. “Hm. Maybe if we try a—”

  Just then, the captain’s voice came over the intercom. “Lieutenant Commander Jaza, report to the bridge, please.”

  He tapped his combadge. “Jaza here. What’s happening?”

  “Deanna’s been contacted by the jellies. It seems they want their body back.”

  When the star-jelly pod emerged from warp, several million kilometers off Titan’s bow, its fourteen members were fully armored. Riker at first wondered if the Pa’haquel had tracked them, until Jaza identified their warp-emergence signatures. That didn’t entirely put him at ease, though. “Why are they armored? Do they still blame us for luring them into an ambush?”

  “We should raise shields,” Kuu’iut advised.

  “Wait,” Deanna said, her attention focused elsewhere. After a moment, she turned to Riker. “They don’t blame us anymore. They can see the truth in my thoughts. They know we meant them no harm. Still, they’re timid, hesitant. They need to assert their strength, and we need to show submission to put them at ease.”

  “You heard the lady, Mr. Kuu’iut. Shields down—and think friendly thoughts.”

  “We should release the tractor beam as well,” Deanna added, “and back away respectfully from the corpse.”

  Riker nodded. “Disengage tractor,” he said evenly, trying to maintain a calm and properly solemn state of mind and project as much to his crew. “Helm, thrusters aft, five hundred meters per second. Then resume station at one hundred klicks.”

  “Thrusters aft, aye,” Lavena acknowledged, her voice appropriately muted. Riker recalled that she’d always been good at responding to his moods; then he quashed that thought as it brought an amused glare from Deanna.

  By now, the jellies’ shells were starting to ripple with cloudy white light, while discrete blobs of purple flowed through their meridional fissures in the opposite direction. Then, nearly in synch with each other, the jellies began to flip over and fade into translucence, a maneuver he recalled from the Deneb encounter. “Why the rotation?” Jaza asked.

  “I think it’s a form of display,” Deanna told him. “To show your full face and confirm that you are dropping your defenses. Also to aim your tentacles at whatever your weapon emitter was aimed at before.”

  Once the jellies had de-armored and deployed their tentacles, they drew into formation around their slain comrade. Two of them cradled it gently while a third took its limp, trailing tentacles and ceremonially furled them back into their ventral depression. As they did so, Riker stood to attention. A moment later, the rest of the bridge crew followed, and they silently paid tribute to the fallen.

  When the furling was done, the two bearers grasped the corpse more tightly, drawing closer. A tear rolling down her cheek, Deanna spoke. “They offer us deep gratitude for our reverence toward their lost sibling, and for rescuing it from desecration. We have proven ourselves their friends, and in return they wish to invite us to accompany them.”

  “Accompany them where?”

  “I think…yes…to the world where it was born. They wish to return it there. Here,” she said, moving over to the helm, “they’ve given me the location.”

  She consulted with Lavena for a moment, locating the proper star on her helm display. “It should be a two-day journey at warp seven,” Lavena said.

  Riker looked from her to Deanna. “Tell them…we’d be honored.”

  Ree clucked his tongue as he studied Tuvok’s neurological scans. “You’re certain that the jellies are still making contact with you?”

  “Yes, Doctor. It is unquestionably they. The telepathic inhibitor is proving insufficient.”

  “Only on you, it seems. Your wife, Orilly, and the others are all adequately inhibited.”

  “But they are targeting me specifically for contact. When I—” He hesitated, out of the embarrassment which Vulcans supposedly didn’t feel. Ree had to admire the Vulcans for their sense of irony—imagine, pretending to be emotionless, and then pretending the pretense was logical! And of course anyone who could smell their pheromo
nes could tell how flimsy their facade of dispassion truly was. “When I attempted to transmit the sensor information to the star-jellies…although I did not obtain the information, the attempt did reveal to them the knowledge that such information exists.” Ree noted that he wasn’t calling them by their scientific name anymore. Did that perhaps denote a growing sympathy toward them? “Since then, they have made attempts to persuade me to share the data about the warp signatures, and the specifications for our sensor technology.”

  “Persuade? Are these attempts coercive?”

  “I do not believe they are intended to be, but that is the effect. The…emotions…feel like one’s own. Without the inhibitor, I share their desire for rescue from the Pa’haquel as profoundly as they. Even with the inhibitor, I am concerned that they may be able to influence me unduly if they bring enough effort to bear upon me. You must increase the inhibitor dosage if I am to return to duty.”

  “I fear it is not so simple, Mr. Tuvok.” Ree’s tail began to twitch as it did when he was wrestling with a problem whose neck eluded his jaws. “There are limits to the efficacy of medication. It can only modify the brain’s chemistry so much, and its structure barely at all. And your brain, Mr. Tuvok…” It’s a real mess, he wanted to say. “It has been through an inordinate amount of strain over the past decade. Let me see,” he said, reviewing Tuvok’s file. “Brainwashing by a Maquis operative…thermal damage from a telekinetic accident…limbic-system imbalance following a meld with a Betazoid sociopath…decades-long infection by a dormant memory virus…extensive brain damage and memory loss from neuroleptic shock…temporary Borg assimilation…and the onset of the preliminary stages of fal-tor-voh.”

  “All of those conditions were corrected,” Tuvok insisted.

  “Yes, but they left their scars. As did the extensive torture and hardship you recently endured at Romulan hands. You are still in the process of healing from that; your emotional control was tenuous for a Vulcan even before we encountered the jellies.” Tuvok said nothing, but he didn’t need to; his shame was redolent. “And even if you had mastered the emotional trauma completely, it would still have left a physical spoor in your neurochemistry, as did all the other neurological traumas you’ve experienced. Your mind, my friend, bears a proud and admirable catalog of scars. You are a survivor, and should be esteemed for that, but being a survivor carries its costs. In this case, the inhibitor is simply limited in its ability to affect your particular neurochemistry. A purer, more innocent brain than yours, I could protect from the jellies’ passions. But with experience comes pain, Mr. Tuvok, and I cannot spare you from all of theirs. You will simply have to endure it. As you have endured far worse in your time.”

  Tuvok’s eyes were hard to read, but his scent was an odd mix of gratitude and disappointment. “In that case, I have no choice but to remain relieved of duty.”

  “Or you could simply accept the passions into you and bend them to your will.”

  The Vulcan looked at him oddly. “I wish it could be that easy, Doctor.”

  “Deanna, wait up!”

  Troi held the lift doors and allowed Christine Vale to step in. “Bridge?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” The car started into motion, but Vale spoke up. “Do you mind if we hold the lift for a moment? I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  “Not at all. Computer, hold.”

  The lift came to a stop, and Vale spoke. “I wanted to apologize for the briefing the other day. I was a bit…confrontational toward you. Implying that you might’ve given sensitive information to the star-jellies. I know you wouldn’t really do that.”

  Troi raised her brows. “How do you know I wouldn’t? Tuvok almost did.”

  Vale stared at her. “Are you saying you might?”

  “That’s not the question. The question is whether you think I might. If you feel there’s a legitimate concern, Christine, you shouldn’t deny it to protect my feelings.”

  “Okay,” Vale said after a moment. “Frankly I did have some concern about that. But it’s the way I think. It’s my training—I worry about security risks. I knew you wouldn’t betray your duties under normal circumstances, but from what I understood about the power of their emotions, how strongly they make you identify with them, I couldn’t be sure.”

  “Of course.”

  “But it was Tuvok who broke, not you. That’s actually…well, pretty impressive. To have more control than a Vulcan. So I’m not worried about you anymore.”

  “Except on general principles,” Troi said.

  Vale stared. “What do you mean? Deanna, I don’t…”

  “It’s all right, I understand. You see it as part of your job to make sure my relationship with Will doesn’t affect his command decisions. To be a balance to my influence, if necessary.”

  “Yeah. Right. That’s just it,” Vale said, nodding. “I’m glad you understand. I just wanted it to be clear that there’s nothing personal about it.”

  Yet that brought a disapproving look from Troi. “You’re doing it again, Christine.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Hiding what you really feel. If we’re to have a viable relationship, you mustn’t hesitate to be honest with me.”

  “What—you think it is personal? Come on, Deanna, we’re friends. I like you, you know that.”

  “I do, of course. And it’s mutual. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be tensions. Jealousies.”

  Vale gaped at her. “You don’t mean—Deanna, I do not feel that way about Will Riker!”

  Deanna laughed. “Oh, no! No, of course not, that’s not what I meant. Believe me, I’d know if you did.” Vale was at once relieved and confused. “But you do feel that way about Jaza Najem, don’t you?”

  Vale glared. “You know, those powers of yours can be a little invasive at times.”

  “Christine, the only power I need to discern that is eyesight. And experience at observing humanoid behavior,” she added. “Don’t worry—I don’t think it’s obvious to everyone that you’ve slept together.”

  Now she blushed. Just those who’ve seen us in the same room, I bet. “It was only the one time.”

  Deanna studied her. “Why do you feel guilty about it?”

  “I don’t! I’m not…We worked it out. It was a onetime thing, no strings, we’re both okay with that. It’s behind us.”

  “So why does the subject make you so defensive?”

  Vale started to protest, but realized that Deanna would coax it out of her with her relentless Socratic approach anyway. So she gathered herself and tried to think about it, to get ahead of Deanna and take an honest look at her motives. The counselor waited patiently as she did so. “Okay. I guess maybe I’m not entirely sure I want it to be behind me. It was…if we weren’t coworkers, it was something I definitely would’ve pursued. So I can’t help wondering if I should pursue it anyway.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  “Well…a little scared. Dating a coworker…it’s risky. There’s so much that can go wrong. So many ways it can mess up the relationship, or the job. It’s a hard balance at best.”

  Deanna nodded. “So I guess those risks are occupying your thoughts lately. The danger of a conflict of interest, of a relationship interfering with your professionalism.”

  “Yeah.” She saw where Troi was going. “And you think I’m projecting that onto you and Will. Being hard on you because of it.”

  “What do you think?”

  Vale let out a frustrated puff of breath. “I think, frankly, Deanna, that I get a little tired of your smug certainty that you have all the answers. Of how—of how easy you make it look. Your job, your marriage, making them work together. Yeah, I am a little jealous of that. Every day I have to compete with you, and I don’t feel like I’m ahead of the game.”

  “Compete with me?” This time her question actually seemed surprised, not just a therapist’s prompt. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that six months ago I was a lieutenant, a s
ecurity chief. I never expected to be on the command track, let alone to be a first officer so soon. But here I am, thrust into it practically out of nowhere. That leaves me with a lot to prove. To myself, to my crewmates, to Starfleet. I’m still figuring out how to do this job, let alone how to balance it with a relationship.

  “But a lot of the things that are supposed to be part of my job—managing the crew’s affairs, leading away missions—you have a hand in those too. I rarely feel like I’m doing any of it on my own. And you’ve known Will so much longer, have decades of experience with him. I’m the first officer, I’m supposed to be Will’s partner…but you’ve been his partner a lot longer, in a much deeper way. You automatically have his ear—hell, you have his mind’s ear. A lot of the time, on the bridge, when he’s trying to make a decision, he looks to you before he looks to me. And if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were literally communing telepathically.”

  For the first time in this conversation, Deanna looked uneasy. “To be honest…that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that!”

  “Normally I can’t with a non-Betazoid. But Will and I…partly it’s the intimacy of our bond, and partly just that our minds have somehow always been more in tune than most. It’s something that’s gotten stronger since we were married.”

  Vale absorbed it. “Well. I appreciate you telling me. Now will you tell me how I’m supposed to compete with that?”

  Deanna touched her arm reassuringly. “It’s just another form of communication, Christine. You have as much power to influence his decisions as I do. Probably more, because he strives to keep the proper chain of command in mind when he’s on the bridge. All else being equal, he’d probably choose to give your advice more weight than mine at any given time.”