“Commander Chakotay is in the ready room.”
Too far away to be efficient. She reached for her combadge and heard an unfamiliar chirp. My badge must be malfunctioning, she thought, and looked down. To the naked eye, there was nothing troubling. She touched it again, “Seven to Commander—”
The chirp sounded again. Spinning around, she saw the viewscreen blinking bright blue. The probe had matched the Doctor’s parameters loaded into its memory with something inside the gash. Stunned, she stared at the viewscreen rapidly filling with lines of data.
“Yes, Seven?”
“I believe we have found the Doctor,” she said. When her shock abated (mere seconds later) she took two long steps over to the console and tapped in the commands to send the information to the bridge. “I’m transmitting the information to your ready room.”
“That’s incredible news, Seven. Don’t share this with anyone until we can confirm it.”
Seven could hear the smile in his voice. “I too am pleased.”
“Get up here immediately so we can go to work.”
She was out the door before he finished his sentence
“Good thinking, Tuvok, I’ll get right on it. Voyager out.” The comm chirped off. Chakotay called down to the shuttlebay to Chief Clemens and asked him to ready a second shuttle. He touched his combadge and ordered Knowles to find another pilot to take the rih-hara-tan back to their ships. The added benefit was that additional supplies could be provided for the Monorhans.
The door chime sounded.
“Come in, Seven,” Chakotay said, barely able to maintain a calm veneer as the doors whooshed open. He hadn’t been this hopeful since the day he’d asked Susannah Many-Feathers Moryoquai to the summer-solstice celebration.
“Commander,” Seven said, and strode over to the nearest workstation. “I will show you the latest operation the probe has undertaken.”
Chakotay rose from behind the desk and went over to huddle with Seven over the workstation. He studied the data carefully. “So what the probe is doing now is emitting a field that will capture anything that matches the Doctor’s photonic signature.”
Seven nodded. “Exactly. The field will not hold all the photonic energy within range, only energy that matches the programmed specifications. The field will capture as many datablocks of the Doctor’s program as it can find and hold them until it has found all the datablocks we asked it to look for. Or—” She hesitated and glanced at the chronometer on the viewscreen.
“If time runs out,” Chakotay finished for her.
“We are down to about fifteen minutes,” Seven said. “And all I can say for certain is that the Doctor was taken into the gash. Beyond that…”
“We might not be able to fish him out.”
A burst of static erupted over the comm system, followed by garbled noise and more static.
Chakotay felt his pulse quicken. In the midst of all the aural clutter, he swore he heard something intelligible. “Run that through filtration, Seven. Now.” He needn’t have asked: she was already at a console, fingers flying over the keys.
“Playback commencing…” she said.
A burst of static, a series of high-pitched squeals, then a distinctive “Voya—” static “help—” The transmission cut off.
“Computer: Voiceprint analysis,” Chakotay said.
“Voiceprint belongs to the Emergency Medical Hologram.”
Overtaken with incredulity, he opened his mouth but no words sufficed. An involuntary blurt of laughter surprised him. He shook his head, disbelieving. “Is it possible? Could the computer be confusing something the probe is transmitting with the actual Doctor?”
Seven’s forehead furrowed with concentration. She cocked her head to one side, pondered, and said, “No, I don’t believe so.”
“Haha!” Chakotay crowed and raised his arms up in the air, out of deference to the Great Spirit—wherever, whatever, that all-powerful force might be. Without thinking, he threw his arms around Seven, enveloping her in a massive bear hug.
Awkwardly, she touched his upper arms with stiff, uninspired pats.
When sense hit him, Chakotay felt how tense her body was and immediately disengaged himself. “I apologize, Seven. The moment carried me away.”
“The sentiment is understood and reciprocated. No apology necessary,” Seven said flatly. She turned away and linked her hands behind her back.
Chakotay, however, swore he saw a slight upward curve crease her cheek before she turned away from him. He had never realized how a smile illuminated an already beautiful face. “Shall we tell the crew?” He watched her. It was almost as if he could see the gears of her mind whirring and spinning. Before she could even answer, he knew what she’d say. “Never mind. Bad idea. We won’t say anything until we’re more certain.”
“I believe that would be best,” she said. “After all, we don’t—”
BAM. The first shock wave hit.
“—the hell?!” Chakotay exclaimed.
The red-alert Klaxons sounded.
q explained Trinity on the way up to the fifty-second floor as a game of high risk and high payoff. When she described it that way, Harry envisioned tongo, dabo, and the old Earth standby poker. He had no idea how juvenile humanoid gambling was until he heard about Kol’s favorite pastime. On his way from conveyor to conveyor, Harry replayed her words in his mind in an effort to put them in terms he could understand.
The basic structure of the game involved three teams composed of up to three players each, though teams with equal numbers of players wasn’t required. Some players—like Kol—tended to play solo, because the payouts were higher. Each team rolled six-sided dice to determine what colors—red, orange, or yellow—of three-sided playing pieces called “triads” the dealer would give them. The team would then slip the triads into empty slots on a triangular board. Rolls continued until all nine slots on the board were filled with the colored triads—the last single slot being called “the crown.” Each team placed their bets, and the team with the largest stake determined how many slots of each team’s pyramid would need to match the pyramid generated by the house (a.k.a. the computer) in order to stay in the game. Matches ranged from two triads to a full pyramid, though q explained that calling for a full-pyramid match in the first round of betting was very rare. If all teams lost, the house won. Rounds continued, pitting the teams against the house and each other, until the entire pyramid was revealed or the winning player halted play.
The probability equations involved in Trinity staggered Harry. He attempted to calculate the odds that certain colors would be rolled over the course of the game; statistically where the ideal placements would be for the colored pieces; and the odds for two, three, or four triad matches, based on where the pieces were placed in the pyramid.
His headache started sometime during his contemplation of the dice rolls.
During his first year at the Academy, he’d gained a reputation as a weekend cardsharp by using his mathematically inclined mind to count cards and improve his odds at winning the occasional dorm game of Texas Hold ’Em poker. Harry’s forays into gambling happened during vacations and school breaks; he never took a trip for the purpose of playing cards. He much preferred his clarinet or logic games. Gambling—card games especially—was relaxing, even entertaining to Harry, but that was the extent of his interest.
By contrast, Tom fancied himself a gambler, but if the two of them compared month by month who won more, Harry’s winnings usually outpaced his friend—not by much, but by enough. Tom might have the charm to wheedle the goods and services he wanted, but Harry could acquire the resources needed to obtain goods and services. He was rarely in anyone’s debt. Inevitably, this was why Tom usually owed Harry more replicator rations than either of them bothered to keep track of. Harry had grown to expect Tom’s good-natured ribbing about his crushes, his bad luck with women, and his horrible tendency to be the Voyager crew member most likely to be mutilated at the hands of hostile ali
ens. But Tom could never give him a hard time about being a loser at games of chance. Listening to q’s explanation, however, took Harry aback. He had no idea how he could be useful to q in making the kinds of strategic choices that would be required to stay in the game.
Pouring on the charm, q managed to sweet-talk her way into finding out which game Kol was involved in, because he was, indeed, as Pem had claimed, involved in a high-stakes game of Trinity.
“So we found him. What now?” Tom asked, his eyes watering from holding back a yawn.
“We play,” q said.
Tom suddenly appeared more alert. Harry, on the other hand, was still trying to figure out how it would be possible for them to play Trinity and win. The probability of success seemed far too remote for him to feel comfortable pressing forward. A glance at q revealed that there would be no dissuading her. In a split second, he decided to throw his lot in with q—not because of her attractiveness, but because in some deep, illogical gut-level place he sensed it was the right choice to make. Heart thudding in his throat, he reached for q’s hand and squeezed it once. “We’re with you.”
“Good,” she said, and left both men so she could discuss the terms of their entering the game with the room attendant.
Luck was with them: no other players had requested to join Kol’s game. Once a team was eliminated, they would be invited into the Trinity Suite. The room attendant invited them to wait in an opulent antechamber, furnished in plush, overstuffed furniture; several servers hovered around, carrying trays of refreshments—liquors, canapés, and bite-sized desserts. Harry took his cues from q, assuming that whatever she ate would be safe for him. When she rescued him from a close call with a raw piece of Taynak codfish, Harry decided to lay off the food.
Time droned on.
At last, Tom broke the quiet. “You know, q, the one thing I don’t understand in all this?”
q raised an eyebrow.
“What’s the deal with this Kol guy? He must have some major malfunction to be throwing his life away the way he is.”
“And what would you know about what it means to be a pandimensional being?” q snapped back.
“Not much,” Tom admitted. “But I do know—from firsthand experiences, by the way—that when a guy spends his life carousing and gambling, he’s running from something.”
Plopping down into an overstuffed chair beside Tom, q peered intently at him, then leaned back and threw her arms out to her sides, draping them over the top of the chair. “You’d be running too if the fate of the universe depended on you. He was created to save his people—both his mother’s and his father’s. There’s never been a moment in his life where he’s been free of that burden. So he plays as a way to escape.”
“I get that,” Harry said, grateful to momentarily put aside his statistical studies of Trinity. Being the much-longed-for only son of doting parents, he also understood the burdens of parental expectations better than most. Still, he wasn’t impressed by how easily Kol appeared to shrug off his responsibilities. “What I don’t get is how indifferent he is to what’s going on around him. I mean, the whole universe is ready to unravel, and he’s goofing off.”
“He cares about some things,” q said. “Take Ocampa. He has a soft spot for Ocampa because of his mother. He’s had the deed to that world since birth and it’s been his most treasured possession as long as I’ve known him.”
Harry started at that. He had a vague recollection of Q mentioning that Kol’s father, the Light, had fallen for a “small town” girl, but Q had never explicitly stated where the girl came from. It made sense that Ocampa fit into this puzzle, considering what Harry had experienced with the Nacene Voyager knew as the Caretaker. He wondered if the Caretaker had anything to do with Kol, but then dismissed that thought. Hadn’t the Caretaker brought individuals to his array from all over the galaxy in his efforts to reproduce—to create a successor? If he’d known about Kol or been part of Kol’s creation, wouldn’t he have simply called on Kol to help the Ocampa?
After a long, thoughtful pause, q said softly, “When it comes to what matters, he does the right thing. And he’s a good friend. I hope he’s okay.” She slapped her thighs and jumped up from her chair, effectively ending their conversation. She started walking the perimeter of the room, occasionally stopping to check in with the room attendant, ostensibly for security updates.
The knowledge that somewhere in the vicinity of Fortis a Nacene hit man closed in on Kol lingered in their thoughts—at least in Harry’s. No question: the urgency of the situation ratcheted up the tension in the room. The speed and strength of q’s gait and the unemotional expression on her face exuded stress. A few times, Harry invited q to come sit by him, hoping it would help her relax, but she rebuffed all his overtures. Seeking a distraction, he resumed his analysis of Trinity.
Tom, on the other hand, seemed immune to the tension in the room and decided to take a nap. He had been sleeping peacefully for almost a half an hour when the door separated. The losing team shuffled through the waiting room. q paused from her pacing long enough to study the players on the off chance that Kol had been eliminated. Harry couldn’t determine whether she was relieved or nervous that he remained inside the playing chamber.
A gangly, hunched-over alien loped through the doorway. Harry presumed he was the dealer, since he wore a fancier version of the red vest that Harry had seen employees sporting downstairs in the lounge. With a ropy arm, he waved them toward the gaming room. q marched through the opening, mail skirt swishing with every swift step.
Harry took Tom by the shoulder and shook him. He groaned in protest and slapped at Harry’s hands before allowing Harry to pull him to his feet. Groggily, he stumbled after Harry into the game room. The door smashed closed behind them with a shhoop. Noting the two empty gray upholstered seats behind q, Harry pushed Tom into the one nearest the door, and then took the seat off to q’s left for himself.
Trimmed with light strips, the silver and black game table, shaped like a four-pointed star, was partitioned into five sections. The four triangular-shaped arm sections, composed of a hard, transparent polymer and lit from beneath, were the “pyramids”; each pyramid had nine slots in which they would insert the colored playing pieces that “built” their pyramids. The dealer, representing the house, sat at the fourth “pyramid” section. The leftover square space in the table’s middle, a solid black color, served as the area where the dice were cast. One team was stationed at each pyramid. The dealer stood at Harry, Tom, and q’s right.
Seated at their left was a player the dealer identified as a Rutillian—who preferred not to share his name. He was an alien with skin of the palest white-gray and a single yellow eye in the center of his cylindrical head. His appearance reminded Harry of a character that might be found in one of the mutant zombie holovids that Tom occasionally dragged him to. The Rutillian’s luxuriant robes of dark purple hid most other anatomical features, save a clawed hand emerging out of a heavy satin sleeve. Harry immediately wondered whether this was the gambler who had brought about the demotion of the Namian dealer they’d chatted up in the lounge. The prospect of having an opponent who “destroyed things” didn’t offer much reassurance to Harry. The dealer then introduced Kol, who sat directly across from their pyramid.
“We know each other,” q said in a clipped tone.
Kol offered a tight-lipped smile in return but otherwise gave no sign of emotion.
Harry was uncertain about what game these two were playing, but the chilly interchange between supposed friends surprised him. Ever more surprising, however, was the Keeper of the Light himself.
After hearing stories of Kol’s wild streak—his recklessness and irresponsibility in accumulating gambling debts and being a node racer—Harry had formed a picture of a callow, irresponsible playboy in his mind: flashy clothes, thick gold rings stacked on his fingers, half-naked females hanging on his shoulders. What struck Harry the most about this, his first in-person encounter with the Kol, was
how ordinary he appeared to be. He evinced a monklike asceticism in his choice of clothing, a dark blue, coarsely woven tunic with no embellishment. Appearance-wise, q was showier than Kol. He, with his smooth, bald head, dark brown eyebrows, and neat goatee, might pass for the humblest of Bajoran vedeks, even without the rhinal ridges. If Harry had passed Kol in the streets anywhere on Earth, he wouldn’t have given the fellow a second look. Only Kol’s green eyes flashed with the vivacity Harry would have expected from a being of such power. Surprising, though, were Kol’s Ocampan ears, which Harry had somehow missed earlier when he’d viewed the holo back at Q U.
With all the introductions made, the dealer explained in unruffled tones the order the rounds would be played. The Rutillian, who had been the most successful in previous games, would make the first roll of the dice and receive the first playing pieces. Kol would go second and q last. Neither Kol nor the Rutillian played with a team.
The Rutillian took the dice cup, shook it several times, and threw the silver-edged dice out onto the game table. A red and two yellow faces appeared. He slid his three pieces into position on his pyramid. The dealer passed the dice to Kol. Kol’s roll was equally unremarkable. Once his pieces had been slotted where he wanted them, the dice cup moved again, and this time to q. She chose one piece; Tom and Harry each selected one. The dice cup continued around the table until all three teams had filled their nineslot pyramids with colored building pieces. Now the tension began in earnest: betting.
The Rutillian dropped the chips he was betting into a slot at the base of his pyramid. Each time a chip dropped, the slot lit up. When he finished placing his bet, the room darkened. A dazzling starscape holoprojection filled the room. Harry stared, overcome with the sensation that he had it within him to reach up and pluck a star from among the billions that surrounded him.
String Theory, Book 3: Evolution Page 27