“The backup generator failed. Twice, in quick succession,” Data said.
A chill crept over Crusher’s skin. “Failed completely?”
“Yes, and then immediately rebooted itself.”
The doctor crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself tight. She had woken up because of the whumping noise, but what if it had been the lack of noise? All the unusual background hums suddenly silenced.
“The power shouldn’t fail,” Crusher whispered. “Not on a station like this.” Because this type of station was designed to work in all environments. Crusher had been on missions where a failure like this would have been disastrous—at least they could breathe the air on Kota. But the tech itself was the same, regardless of the planetary condition. Which meant it was very troubling, and very unusual, that both the EPS and the backup commands from the station’s computer had failed.
Data paused, his hands still buried in ODN cables. “No,” he said, “it should not.”
Uneasiness crawled up Crusher’s spine. “Do you think this is related to the dinner attack?”
“I am trying to determine that the cause of this failure is not related to other issues.”
Crusher watched as Data pulled up a fingernail and put a particularly delicate ODN into his fingertip. Instantly, everything lit up. A harsh, arctic glow threw strange, jagged shadows across the grass. Data gazed into the far distance as information raced through the ODN and into him.
To Crusher, the ODN cables inside the biostructure looked like a life-form’s nervous system, millions of complicated pathways giving form and meaning to the biomatter that grew up around it. But something as simple as an injury to the wrong part of the body could make the entire system collapse. An infection in the brain and the body would shut down in unexpected ways. A whole litany of effects from one spot of disease.
The lights blinked out. Data had tucked the ODN back into place. “There appears to be no fault in the system.”
“There has to be something.”
“Strange,” Data said as he put the biomass back into place, pinching it with his fingers until it melded together. “We are seeing similarities between the technological failures and the medical ones.”
An infection in the brain, she thought.
* * *
“This’ll only sting a little,” Crusher promised.
Malisson made a face. “Doctors always say that.”
Crusher pressed the extractor against Malisson’s arm and collected a vial of her blood. She was cautious about using any equipment, after what had happened last night. But she tested the instrument on herself, and it was functional.
“All done,” Crusher said, adding Malisson’s sample to the others she’d collected: seven the more common red, and one bright cerulean blue, courtesy of the Bolian.
“Hope you find something useful,” Malisson said. “I had those dreams again last night.”
Crusher smiled thinly. “I hope so too.”
Malisson wasn’t the only one who’d had the dreams. The others had complained as well. Images of drowning, of strange drawings scrawled across cave walls, of the stars swirling into patterns. Making notes of the imagery, she then took everyone’s temperature. Normal. No surprise.
Crusher carried the blood samples into the laboratory she was sharing with Data. He was studying last night’s malfunctioning equipment, currently staring intently at the cylindrical core of the replicator.
“Anything?” she asked him.
“No.” He set the core down. “All that remains is to examine the station’s computer. But given the lack of issues in the structure’s ODN, I suspect I will also turn up nothing.”
“Well, let’s hope I find something.” She shook the tray a bit, making the vials clank together.
“You are excited about the prospects?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Data.” She slid in front of the centrifuge.
She fed the vials into the centrifuge and told it to start. A whir rose up from the machine, soft and whispery. The vials whipped around in the machine, humming softly.
Instead of test results, it was displaying nonsense. Strings of words in Standard, Bajoran, Vulcan, binary code, and dozens of other languages. The words rippled down the screen like a waterfall. Landslide—I left the—inordinate—cloudcraft songs above the sky—
“Data,” she said uncertainly, looking at him, “I think I got something.”
The centrifuge let out a screeching, grinding groan. Just as Crusher turned toward it, she saw seven red streaks and one blue jettison toward the ceiling. A heartbeat later came the crystalline shatter and the wet spray of blood.
The two of them peered up at the blood-spattered ceiling. “Jackson Pollock,” Data said. “Convergence.”
“What?” Crusher felt dazed. The centrifuge was still running. Words flowed down the control pad. A few drops of blood dripped onto the floor.
“Data, are you all right?”
“Peachy keen, Billy Jean.”
“What?” Crusher rubbed her temples. “Data, could you please deactivate your slang program. Now’s really not the—”
“I do not have my slang program activated, Doctor.”
Crusher studied Data. He was watching her with a quizzical tilt of the head, his confused expression one that she hadn’t seen in six years.
“ ‘Peachy keen’?”
His brow furrowed. “I did not say that. I merely stated that I am perfectly fine. I—” He stopped. “I did.” He looked at her. “Doctor, this is disturbing.”
“I’ll say.” Crusher peered up at the blood splatter on the ceiling. “Computer, biowaste protocol.”
There was a long pause, longer than normal. For a moment Crusher was certain that the computer had failed. But then it answered, “Affirmative. Biowaste detected. Initiating cleanup protocol.”
Biowaste. Crusher had been so stunned by the centrifuge’s failure that she hadn’t been thinking properly. The computer should have detected the blood splatter immediately.
It did appear to be cleaning it up now. The blood slowly seeped into the biomass, where it would be broken down and used to reinforce the strength of the structure. That was what it should be doing.
“Something is going very wrong,” Crusher whispered.
A knock sounded on the door. “Can I come in?” Riker asked.
“Yes, of course.” Crusher went back to the station, where the centrifuge was still running. “Stop,” she ordered, and to her surprise, it did.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Riker said. “But I need Data’s help. We’re having issues in the other lab.”
Of course they were.
“Everything all right?” Riker stepped into the room, peering around. Crusher leaned against the table.
“Peachy keen, Billy Jean,” said Data.
Riker gave him a confused look.
“Again?” Data said to Crusher. She nodded.
“What’s going on in here?”
“Something’s affecting the technology in the station,” Crusher said, “and unfortunately, that includes Data.”
“It is true,” Data said. “Which is why I feel it is necessary to ask you to deactivate me until we can determine what is happening.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Riker said.
“Without realizing it, there is the potential for me to do something I would regret.”
“I would tell you to run diagnostics,” Crusher said. “But like everything else, I doubt you’ll find anything wrong.” She looked to Riker. “Are the others okay?”
Riker replied, “Yes. It was just the microviewer. It keeps showing false readings.”
“What kind of false readings?”
“Well, that’s probably not the best way to describe it. Come see for yourself.” He nodded at Data, grinning a little. “You come along too. I’ll make sure you don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
Crusher fell into step beside Data as they left the laboratory. “
We’ll figure out what’s going on,” she told him. “I may not be an engineer, but I’m still your doctor.”
“I appreciate that,” Data said.
Crusher smiled, but she wished La Forge were here.
The second laboratory was cramped, and none of the team were working. When Riker walked in, Malisson threw her head back and groaned. “Everything’s doing it now.”
“Really?” Riker let out a frustrated sigh.
Crusher wove her way up to the microviewer. The screen flashed with light and color, swirls of lavender and green pooling together and spreading apart, puddling into strange, delicate shapes that almost—almost—seemed familiar. They were like the faces of a person she had only seen once, or a song she hadn’t heard in decades.
What it should have been showing was the magnification of whatever sample had been loaded into it.
“What were you looking at?” she asked, watching the screen. The colors shifted into shades of blue, black lines growing up like jagged, broken trees. Or Lichtenstein patterns. Every time Crusher thought she saw something in the images, it evaporated away.
“Groundwater.” Solanko crossed his arms over his chest and scowled down at the machine. “Running a check on potential microorganisms. We shouldn’t be able to see anything; even if there were some critters in the water, it wouldn’t look like this.” He flung his hand toward the screen. “Then it started up on the other equipment, even Ensign Rikkilä’s tricorder.”
“And the padds,” Rikkilä called out, “all of them.”
“It’s either the weird images or words.” Talma handed over his padd. Crusher was not surprised to see the waterfall of languages cascading down the screen.
“This same thing happened to me,” Crusher offered. “And Data, tell them—”
The room was plunged into darkness.
There was a flurry of confusion. “Where are the emergency lights?” someone called out. Crusher felt around for a light but only succeeded in jamming her finger against something hard, metallic, and cold.
“Everyone, file out to the common room,” Riker said. “There are windows in there, so at least we’ll be able to see.”
“The lights should be on by now,” Talma said, his voice floating from somewhere across the lab.
Data said, “Please, allow me to lead you out of the room. I am not hindered by darkness.”
Crusher followed Data out into the corridor and into the common room. Thin sunshine filtered through the skylights built into the ceiling.
“The power failed twice last night,” Data said, “but immediately rebooted.”
“As it’s meant to do,” Malisson said, fear carving edges into her words.
“I was unable to determine the cause of the failures.”
Riker strode across the room and flung open the door, letting in a swell of wind. “Malisson, with me. We’re taking a look at it. Solanko, stay here, let me know if anything changes.”
“Yes, sir.” Solanko tapped on his padd. He muttered, “Worthless.”
Riker and Malisson vanished out the door, letting it swing shut behind them. Crusher sat down on a sofa beside Rikkilä. “How do you feel?” she murmured. “Any symptoms?”
The ensign shook her head. She pulled out her padd, still flowing with words. “It’s a bunch of different languages,” she said, “including Finnish, not standard.”
“Finnish?”
Rikkilä nodded. “I learned some of it when I was little. I installed it on my padd when I joined the Enterprise.”
Crusher frowned. “I suppose that makes sense—it’s using the languages included on the padd.”
“But I’ve never seen a padd malfunction in this way.” Talma joined them, looking at his own padd. “It’s almost like the padd is just throwing words at us. I mean—” He held up his padd. Words flashed by. “Mine is set to Standard. Now it’s all Bolian. A number of Bolian words, plus some nonsense.”
“Data,” Crusher asked, “what do you think?”
“It is far out, Doc.”
“Again,” Crusher said.
Rikkilä was clearly trying to smother a smile. The Bolian looked confused.
“What I am trying to explain is…” Data paused. “These slang expressions are involuntary. The words on the padd are also involuntary. There is no program on a Starfleet padd that does this. I suspect the power failures are an involuntary expression.”
Crusher thought of last night, standing in the cold wind, thinking about blood veins and strokes.
“Are you saying the technology is sick?” she asked.
“Isn’t that a doctor’s way of saying it’s malfunctioning?” Talma asked.
“I think that is accurate. There is something foreign in the system. And the technology is trying to expel it,” Data said.
Crusher leaned back. That was how she had seen the initial attack on the beach—an infection, one she hadn’t been able to identify. Maybe it was an infection, but not a virus or a bacteria. Something else. Something that could affect organic life-forms and technology.
“That’s not good,” Rikkilä said. “Look at us, sitting in the dark—” She gestured at the room, the thin, murky light. “We can breathe the air, but we don’t have a replicator. Our tricorders are not reliable enough to tell us what vegetation is safe to eat.” She turned to Crusher. “Sometimes it isn’t the disease that kills, but the attempts of the body to get rid of it.”
Crusher wondered if she was onto something.
“Whatever it was, it’s no longer affecting us,” Rikkilä said.
“We probably shouldn’t assume that,” Crusher said softly.
“Maybe we expelled it, no problem. But what if it kills the technology?” The ensign’s voice had raised an octave higher. “What if the tech is trying so hard to get rid of whatever all this weirdness is, in an attempt to kill it?”
The room had gone very quiet. Rikkilä seemed to notice for the first time, and withdrew a little into herself. “Just something I’m thinking about,” she said in a rush.
“An astute observation, Ensign. Data, I think we need—”
“Riker to Crusher.” His voice cut through the room, louder than the doctor expected.
“Go ahead,” Crusher said. “We still don’t have power.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Silence. “We have a problem.”
18
Picard and Sulel were back on the floor of the temple. The crowd had settled; attendees and guests looked listless and bored rather than panicked and desperate.
“Captain, I appreciate your help these last few hours,” Sulel said. “I know you would much rather have been aboard the Enterprise.”
Picard didn’t want to answer, only in that he had no desire to say something sharp to the ambassador. It was late, he was exhausted, and his dealings with the House leaders had tested the limits of his patience. Still, he appreciated the acknowledgment.
Finally, he said, “It’s certainly been an interesting experience.”
Sulel studied him. “It is the interesting experiences that shape us, do you agree?”
Picard tugged at the ridiculous costume he was still wearing. “I can’t say I disagree.”
Sulel regarded him for a moment. “I was uncomfortable with all this… ceremony.” She gestured out toward the temple, and Picard looked out at the attendees in their elaborate finery, the guests in their extravagant historical costumes, still sitting in their assigned places. Security had paused the questioning when the Enterprise left to capture Aviana Virox.
“What changed your mind?” Picard asked.
Sulel tilted her head thoughtfully. “I participated in a ceremony with a similar structure to this one. The five guest groups, the endless pageantry. It was much smaller—a local celebration.”
“Did Ambassador Troi rope you into it?” Picard said before he could stop himself.
To his relief, Sulel smirked. “Yes. She said it would be good for me.”
“She says that
a lot,” Picard muttered.
“It was good for me,” Sulel continued. “I was asked to stand in for a Music Guest. Lwaxana had heard me play the Vulcan lute. As a child, I used to play constantly, to soothe my emotions.”
Picard raised an eyebrow and Sulel let his observation go. “I had to dress up in an Lestai-era costume. Are you familiar with that one?”
“No.”
“It involves corsetry and quite a lot of capes. I found it all absurd. Why all that work to clothe your body? It was illogical.”
Picard smiled a little.
“But as the Federation ambassador,” she continued, “it was my job to ensure I understood Betazed. I did as I was asked. I wore the costume, I participated in the dances”—she looked sideways at him—“which were much more highly choreographed than yours.”
Picard felt himself blush.
“I also had to perform in public,” she continued. “Something I had never done before.”
“I’m sure you played beautifully,” Picard said.
“Thank you, Captain.” Her eyes sparkled. “It was an unparalleled experience. It showed me that I can learn from the Betazoid people. How much I can learn from Lwaxana. She is a friend.”
Picard turned his gaze back out to the crowd. Sulel and Lwaxana had been working together to convince him to stay. He knew it.
So why wasn’t he angry about it?
A figure in a white-and-gray uniform strode through the crowd—Commander Rusina. He lifted his hand in greeting as he approached the captain and the ambassador.
“Commander,” Sulel said. “Have you received word from the Enterprise?”
“They are still in pursuit,” the commander said. “I have spoken with my officers, and we have decided to lift the temple lockdown. We know that the culprit, whether it is Virox or someone else, is no longer here. There’s no point in keeping people here while we wait for answers.”
“A logical decision,” Sulel said. “Captain, what are your thoughts?”
Picard managed to keep the glee out of his voice. “I agree. I’m sure the attendees”—he paused meaningfully—“and the guests would appreciate a chance to rest.”
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