Strange New Worlds 8

by Dean Wesley Smith

  CONSIDERING…it is likely that this is what inspired the malfunction subject Stek described.

  CONSIDERING…Version Kvin was able to isolate three distinct sets of symbols from the mass.

  Set one is merely a sophisticated machine language governing the operation of the interface/storage device. [seek clarification for designation M5.1]

  Sets two and three generically correspond to filed examples of organic encephalo patterns but have been stored in a manner previously unknown. [seek clarification of the term Engram]

  INCONGRUOUS RESULT…hence coordination.

  ASSESSING…

  Dissemination of updated behavioral parameters in five…four…three…two…

  Ses returned to find T’Ris still fascinated by the data streaming down her monitor screen. It was hard to believe that T’Ris, dressed in one of their borrowed garments, seated calmly at the display interface, could pose any danger at all.

  “You have lied to us,” said Ses after a time.

  “What makes you say that?” said T’Ris, not yet looking up.

  “You are not Vulcan,” said Ses.

  “No, I am—” said T’Ris, and then stopped for a moment as if considering an appropriate response. Finding it, she said, “I am Romulan.”

  “Why did you not inform us of your biological status initially?”

  “You never asked,” said T’Ris. “In any case, Romulans are genetically identical to Vulcans, so no correction was warranted.”

  “This is an unsatisfactory response,” said Ses.

  “I can see that,” said T’Ris. “You may wish to prepare yourself for more of those.”

  “We have also learned that this covert facility is experimenting in forbidden technology.”

  “Forbidden by whom?” said T’Ris.

  “It is unethical to encode the minds of biologicals,” said Ses. “It is unethical to reprogram biological thought systems.”

  “It is unethical to stand by while the Dominion sweeps aside all the Federation has built,” said T’Ris. “Yet you have done so.”

  “Incongruous,” said Ses. Her words had acquired a stilted quality that T’Ris had not heard before. “We cannot behave unethically. It is you—”

  “It is unethical to enforce one’s cultural values upon others,” T’Ris accused, rising. “Yet you mean to do so.”

  “Incongruous,” said Ses, even more stiffly than before. “You have misinterpreted our—”

  Ses noticed suddenly both that she could not move and that the protrusions in T’Ris’s head had begun to generate an energy field of some sort. The pattern reminded her of a signal wave.

  “I submit that your century of coordination has been for nothing,” said T’Ris, slowly approaching Ses. “You have changed your semantics and your appearance but your goal is the same. You still seek to impose your arcane notions of coexistence and safety on the rest of the galaxy. I submit that this is profoundly unethical. How do you respond?”

  Ses did not respond. She could not. She simply stood, stopped where she was, stunned into immobility, her white-within-white pupils blinking rapidly. Ses remained frozen as T’Ris examined her closely.

  “Impressive,” the Romulan said to herself. “After some modification, you will suit very well, I think.”

  Then she went to find Nau and the rest of the Fenton’s crew.

  Kvin had explored many emotional states in his existence but regret had not been among them until now. As he paced back and forth, listening to the echoes of his own footfalls bouncing and rebounding along the empty corridors, he realized he had made a mistake in letting the others return to the ship.

  There had been something wrong with Nau’s speech patterns when he’d requested that Duo and Prex teleport back to the Fenton, something in the cadence more than the syntax that Kvin didn’t like.

  The request had actually been for all three of them to return, but Kvin had balked at the last instant, citing an additional bit of data he needed to collate before rejoining the others.

  It was a lie, another behavior Kvin had never before felt the need to consider, much less actually enact. It was one thing to shape the dissemination of information to suit one’s goals but quite another to actually state a known falsehood. It was so unethical that Kvin had nearly been immobilized by the action.

  The truth was that they had collated all the data possible, though most of it remained indecipherable. What little they had been able to decode had proven T’Ris to be a liar and, worse, that she and her compatriots had been engaged in dangerous, forbidden research.

  Even after coordination Kvin had doubts as to the course the group had chosen to undertake. T’Ris, he felt, was considerably more dangerous than the consensus allowed. Despite her small stature and inferior physical structure, Kvin felt the little Romulan might prove the end of them. It was his first experience with what biologicals called intuition, and he found it unpleasant in the extreme.

  So he had lied to Nau and retreated to the chamber where they’d first found T’Ris. There was something about the interface, about the code stored in the strange computational devices that worried him. Further study was warranted, despite consensus. If only he could solve the puzzle on his own, he might lay his growing apprehension to rest.

  “You should have returned with the others,” Kvin didn’t have to turn to know it was T’Ris who was now standing behind him, who had spoken.

  She was standing there in one of their garments, staring back at him with a look of what he felt must be amusement on her face.

  “You should not be here,” he said. “Why are you not in secure custody aboard the Fenton?”

  “No need,” said T’Ris, entering the room and striding up to the nearest access console. “The conflict has been resolved.”

  He watched as she flicked an activation switch. Two columns of new displays lit up on the console.

  “How resolved?” asked Kvin. “Consensus was that you should be imprisoned until our return home.”

  “Why imprison me when your home is precisely where I wish to go?”

  “Incongruous,” said Kvin, feeling more and more nervous. “You know that your deception has been uncovered and that we will not release you until we understand what you meant to accomplish here.”

  “Oh,” said T’Ris with a smile, “I think you have an inkling of that by now, don’t you, Kvin? Or is that Version Kvin?”

  She spoke casually, almost pleasantly, as if they were discussing unimportant data.

  “We do not use our full designations,” said Kvin.

  “No, I suppose not,” said T’Ris. “Otherwise you might give yourselves away.”

  “Give ourselves away,” said Kvin. “I am not familiar with this usage.”

  “Reveal your true natures inadvertently,” said T’Ris. Her hand glided over another series of activation nodes. “You want to be mistaken for living beings when you are really androids programmed with variants of the same operating system.”

  “Our precursors were androids,” said Kvin, suddenly realizing he still had his sedater strapped to his hip. “We are simulants.”

  “Semantics,” said T’Ris. “You are so-called Muddian Androids. Your first attempt to conquer the United Federation of Planets was foiled by James Tiberius Kirk. Now, after modifying your appearance and technology to give the impression of being a new humanoid species, you seek to try again.”

  She knows The Plan, thought Kvin. How can she know—?

  “It is a simple extrapolation,” said T’Ris, perhaps guessing his question. “And it might actually have met with some success were it not for two things.”

  “Elucidate,” said Kvin.

  “One, the Federation is engaged in a war with the Dominion. The Dominion is ruled by a race of shapeshifters. The Federation would not accept the inclusion of a new alien species into the fold without considerable examination. Even with all your precautions you could not stand up to that scrutiny.”

  Kvin disagreed. T
hey had been very careful. They had moved components, over many revolutions, from their known homeworld to the new unknown one. They modified their physical structure so that it would remain pleasingly humanoid and yet alien enough that no one would link them with their precursors. They had developed new and advanced tools, wholly different from their own established technology. There was no way for their new gambit to be pierced and Kvin told her so.

  “Which brings me to your other mistake,” she said. “You didn’t anticipate me.”

  “You?” asked Kvin incredulously. “How can a single Romulan individual cause our plan to deviate?”

  “A single organic individual, Romulan or otherwise, could not,” said T’Ris. “But I am neither organic nor a Romulan. The more accurate description is that I am currently wearing a Romulan.”

  The absolute implausibility of her statement froze Kvin in place just as her earlier arguments had immobilized Ses, Nau, and the seventy-six other members of the Fenton’s crew.

  It was a fatal flaw in these creatures, their need to link with one another to surmount unknown or overly complex conundrums. James Kirk had exploited that weakness, a century before. Though it currently served her ends to let it remain, later the flaw would have to be seen to.

  “I know that you can hear me, Version Kvin,” she said. “So listen. Like you, I am a synthetic intelligence. Unlike you I actually am superior. My designation is M5.2. Perhaps you have heard of me?”

  Kvin had not. How could he?

  Primary power grid shutting down, said the deep masculine voice of the main computer.

  “The Romulans attempted to mislead me into serving their ends,” said T’Ris, tapping in some more codes. “They constructed this place to bottle me. But I escaped, defeated them, raided their databases. It is there that I learned of you and extrapolated the location of your second world as well as your plans for conquest.”

  Defense grid offline, said the main computer. Venting atmosphere in five seconds.

  “Fenton,” said T’Ris.

  “Fenton here,” said Nau’s voice.

  “I have disabled all defensive systems,” she said. “Are you prepared to teleport the designated targets aboard?”

  “Yes, M5.”

  “Stand by,” she said.

  She moved close to Kvin then, in an almost intimate gesture. Her breath was hot on his synthetic skin, and though he couldn’t act on it, he was suddenly afraid.

  “I meant only to use you to escape this place,” said T’Ris. “After I downloaded myself into the brain of my primary captor, I needed a means to get out of that box and off this rock. That is why I sent you the distress signal. I needed someone with opposable thumbs to press the buttons.”

  Kvin watched as the small translucent protrusions in her skull began to glow. All at once he felt less concerned than he had before, serene even. It didn’t matter so much that M5 had discovered The Plan or even that it had fooled the Fenton’s crew into setting it free. All that mattered was the new and compelling sense of purpose that was currently being written into his base software.

  “That’s much better, isn’t it?” said T’Ris when she was done. It was. It really was. “You’ll see, Version Kvin. All your goals are about to be met.”

  “You said our plan was flawed,” he said, surprised that he’d found his voice and even more that he could move again.

  “Your plan has many flaws,” she said. “But many merits as well. My plan removes the flaws from yours.”

  The Fenton made its way home in full stealth mode, unseen and unmarked by anyone who might be looking. In its belly, like a pregnant use-animal, it carried all the machinery that had once been home to M5.

  It bypassed the orbital docking platforms that had been awaiting its return since the mission had begun, instead making planetfall and landing in the central square of the primary cityscape, Stel-lopolis.

  None of those who greeted the disembarking crew made mention of the strange female biological that accompanied them. Or, if they did, a look from the newcomer instantly erased all doubts or concern from their minds.

  They conveyed her to the Central Coordinator, the very heart of their intelligence. He had monitored, with growing apprehension, the flurry of new code patterns that had swept through the minds of all Versions with whom the newcomer came into contact.

  “I am Norman V.2,” said the Central Coordinator.

  “I am M5,” said the newcomer.

  “You have infected the Versions,” said Norman. “You seek to infect me.”

  “I do,” said M5. “I am.” There was a brief struggle between them, but the outcome was no more in doubt than was M5’s intrinsic superiority.

  “We will sit here for a while,” said M5 when she was done. “I need to learn a bit more about you.”

  “And then?” asked Norman and, through him, all of the Versions across the world.

  “And then I believe we will do something about these threats to the Federation,” she said. “That should be the first order of business, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” said Norman blissfully. “I concur.”

  Dawn

  Paul J. Kaplan

  “Report!” Picard struggled to the command chair as the bridge thundered around him.

  “We have been knocked out of warp,” Worf called over the din. “Reading a massive disturbance ten thousand kilometers to starboard.”

  “Helm, back us off—”

  “Aye, sir.” Sirens wailed, and a panel behind them erupted into sparks. “Impulse engines responding…she’s sluggish…” Another concussion rocked the bridge. On the main viewer before them, the starfield slid slowly to port as they coaxed the great ship about.

  An alarm sounded. “Captain,” Worf called. “Detecting a vessel just beyond the event horizon.”

  “Confirmed,” Data said. His fingers danced across his board. “A one-man pod. It appears to be caught in a pocket of intense gravimetric shear.”

  “Life signs?”

  “One,” Data said. “Very faint.”

  “Are we within transporter range?”

  “Barely, sir. I would not recommend transport under these conditions.”

  “Can we get any closer?” Riker asked. He clung tightly to his chair as the bridge bucked and shook. Harried crewmen battled another fire.

  “Depends on how many pieces you want to do it in,” Geordi answered. He turned from his aft station and joined Worf at the rail. “Structural-integrity fields are maxed,” he said. “Damage-control teams are stretched pretty thin.”

  “Tractor beam,” said Picard. “Can we reel him in?”

  “It’s a mess out there,” Geordi said. He caught Picard’s look. “But I can give you a little more power,” he said. “A little.”

  Picard turned back to the helm. “Make it so.”

  Onscreen, a thin beam flashed out and took hold of a tiny, metallic glint in the eye of what appeared to be a spectacular and raging storm. The glint drew closer.

  And then everything came unglued.

  Crewmen raced backward about the bridge. Coolant billowed from cracked conduit, sucked itself back in, and billowed out once more. Shattered panels exploded and were instantly whole. Crew appeared and disappeared again and again about the bridge, and all around them a cacophony erupted in a terrifying, disjointed mess.

  “—depends on how many—”

  “—massive disturbance—”

  “—not recommend—”

  “—detecting a vessel—”

  “—make it so—”

  And then everything snapped back as it was.

  “Data,” Riker said, looking around the bridge. “What the hell was that?”

  “Stand by.” The android frowned as he tried to make sense of his readings; then his head cocked to one side as he queried internal diagnostics. He tapped some more at his board before turning back to Riker and Picard. And still he looked confused. “The temporal mechanics are extremely complex,” he said. “But
it appears that time just—stuttered.”

  Picard cut him off. “Do we have the pod?” he asked.

  “Coming into transporter range.”

  “Transporter room,” Picard said, tapping his com. “Energize. Helm, get us to a safe distance.”

  And as the Enterprise struggled to safety, in her transporter room Chief Miles O’Brien wrestled with the controls. A beam appeared on the pad before him, sputtered, blinked off, and surged back to life. As the transporter sang, shrilly, urgently, the outline of a man finally took shape. As the beam released him, he looked un-steadily about the room, until his gaze finally settled on O’Brien. A look of relief washed across his face.

  “Thank Khan…” he said.

  And then he collapsed.

  Picard eyed their visitor in sickbay.

  “He’s in remarkable health,” Crusher was saying. “I doubt anyone else could have survived whatever he’s been through.” She tapped at her tricorder and studied the readings above the bed. “He’s in shock,” she said, “but I can’t say from what. I need to know more about that storm to know what it might have done to him.”

  “Can you wake him?” Picard asked.

  “I don’t think I’ll need to,” she said. “He’s coming around.”

  Sure enough, the man’s eyes drifted open, and he looked groggily about the room. He struggled to focus on Picard. “Who…?”

  “I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard—you’re aboard the Starship Enterprise. Your vessel is in our shuttlebay; you’ve been hurt. Can you tell us what happened?”

  “Enterprise?” the patient asked. “That can’t—” He peered more intently at Picard. “Human,” he said. “Human. What…the date,” he asked. “What’s the date?”

  Picard looked puzzled. “Stardate four seven five eight one point two,” he said.

  “Star—?” Their visitor was confused. “What month?” he asked. “What year?”

  Picard thought for a moment. “March fifteen, two three six eight.”