by David Mack
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For those who dare to do what others say can’t be done
Historian’s Note
The events of this story take place in late 2269, a few months after the events of Star Trek: Seekers #2, Point of Divergence, and five months after the Enterprise’s mission to Camus II (Star Trek: The Original Series, “Turnabout Intruder”).
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
—Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future
1
The universe was about to give up one of its most closely held secrets, and Doctor Pren Kavalas swore by his cranial fins he wouldn’t miss a moment of this historic breakthrough. He kept his left eye on the bank of status gauges for the quantum variance field, his middle eye on the monitors for the remotely located quantum fluctuation generator, and his right eye on his colleagues, to make sure they were giving this moment as much of their attention as he was. He had labored too long to leave even the smallest details to chance. Not when he was so close.
For their parts, Doctor Nobixu Guentheri and Professor Zehgos Poal seemed as engrossed in their assigned tasks as Kavalas was in his. Like Kavalas, Guentheri was a specialist in dark energy research, though her achievements in the field to that point had been more theoretical than practical. Her insights had been vital to the conception of the QFG, even if she had proved less than instrumental in the hands-on aspects of the project. That, after all, was why they had enlisted the aid of the renowned Professor Poal. Unlike many members of academia, he excelled at putting ideas into action and extracting concrete results from fanciful inventions.
Tonight, the three of them would rewrite the rules of science.
Kavalas tried to affect a neutral tone, but despite his efforts, his voice trembled with excitement. “Doctor Guentheri? Are the flux levels within the expected range?”
“So far.” She adjusted the settings on her console. “But the amplitude is increasing.”
Troubled by her report, Kavalas checked his master gauges. Just as Guentheri had said, the highs and lows of the quantum field fluctuations were becoming more pronounced.
“Professor, reduce the power to the QFG. We need to stabilize the variance field.”
“Reducing power.” Poal worked quickly. His hands’ slender digits were stiff, slow, and wrinkled, robbed of their supple grace by time’s relentless march but still capable of coaxing precision results from all manner of machines. He stopped and looked at Kavalas. “The system isn’t responding. Power output from the QFG is continuing to increase.”
Not a malfunction, not now. Like most Austarans, Pren Kavalas wasn’t superstitious; he took pride in his rationality, his logic, and his intellect. But fear drove him to pray to the mythical Sea Mother his people had worshiped eons ago. Please, not now.
Setbacks were a part of science. He knew that. But he and his partners were in a race to set the future for their people. Their rivals at the Gemakis Foundation were working on a system for magnetically harnessing the energy released from the mutual annihilation of deuterium and antideuterium. It had shown promise, though Kavalas had been vocal in his criticism of its need for a constant supply of antimatter, a limitation that called into question its practicality as a power source. By contrast, his research into dark energy had suggested the possibility of tapping into an effectively unlimited, ubiquitous supply of free cosmic power. If he could make the quantum fluctuation generator work, not only would it revolutionize the mass production of energy for everyone on Anura, it would transform the Austarans into a starfaring civilization in less than decade. After that, the entire galaxy would be open to them.
Assuming he and his collaborators could rein in their runaway generator.
“Cut the mains,” Kavalas said. “Bring the disruptor coils online.”
Poal reacted first. “Shutting off main power.”
Guentheri scrambled to throw emergency switches. “Activating disruptor coils.”
If everything worked as designed, the sudden loss of main power would leave only a residual quantum variance field around the QFG, and a quick pulse from the disruptor coils would disperse the effect and restore the system to its neutral state. Kavalas watched the digital readouts on the master console stutter with gibberish and machine-language symbols for a few seconds. When the displays stabilized, the story they told was not one he wanted to see.
“Why is the variance field still intact?”
His peers pressed in close to his back and watched over his shoulders, their jaws agape, as the data on his screens trended in the wrong direction. The professor pointed at the gauges. “The bigger question is: Why is it increasing?”
It shouldn’t have been possible, but Kavalas watched it happen. The quantum fluctuation generator was cut off from its power inputs, and its output was being blocked by the coils—yet the quantum variance field was increasing in strength and size, as if neither precaution had been put into effect. In defiance of the system’s safeguards and all the known laws of physics, the generator had become not just self-sustaining but self-expanding.
A warbling croak of horror resonated inside Guentheri’s delicate vocal sac, which trembled beneath her tapered jaw. “I was afraid of this, Pren. The threshold for critical stability in the quantum membrane must have been lower than we calculated.”
Kavalas clutched anxiously at the pale silver fabric of his work tunic. “That can’t be right, Nobi. We ran all those simulations, checked all the equations—”
“There were always variables we couldn’t guarantee,” she cut in. “I told you that.”
Dread and regret mingled in Kavalas’s stomach. “Nobi, please tell me we’re not looking at a worst-case scenario.”
She rolled her narrow shoulders. “We won’t know until . . .” Her voice trailed off as her three eyes bulged in alarm. Kavalas and Poal pivoted toward the master control panel. All its readouts had gone dark. Fear took hold of Kavalas as he leapt to the console and started keying commands into every interface, in the hope that one of them would respond.
Poal was nervous as he sidled up to him. “We lost contact with the QFG, didn’t we?”
“Yes.” Kavalas ceased his efforts. With both hands flat on his console, he hunched forward in exhaustion. After taking a moment to compose himself, he straightened and pulled his personal comm from a pocket on the inside of his tunic. “Keep trying to shut it down, any way you can.” He tapped commands into his comm’s touchscreen. “I need to call the tribune and tell her we might have just unleashed a global catastrophe that will kill us all.”
2
Eyes fixed on his target, Captain Clark Terrell swung the club with grave precision. Its bulbous head struck the dimpled white ball and, with a satisfying thwack, launched it into a lazy arc that carried it more than two hundred meters across the verdant plains.
“Now, that’s what I call a drive! Wouldn’t you say, Crewman?”
Torvin stood a few meters behind him, his expression blank, his shoulders drooped under the burden of Terrell’s bag of golf clubs. He answered in a low monotone, “Nice shot, sir.”
“Thank you.” He lobbed the driver back to the slight-of-frame young Tiburonian, who caught it and tucked it back into t
he bag with the other clubs.
Terrell took a deep breath. The air on this as-yet-unnamed planet smelled crisp and clean, and its daytime sky was just a few shades more violet than Earth’s but just as lovely when dotted with ragged clouds. Light from its yellow star beat down, warm and almost familiar. Invigorated, he set off through the field of ankle-tall grass in pursuit of his ball.
“I think we’ve earned this,” Terrell said. “Don’t you, Torvin?”
A muffled grunt of exertion. “If you say so, sir.”
“You sound winded, son.”
“I just wish we could’ve used one of the rovers.”
“Well, they had work to do. Besides, half the point of golf is to get some exercise.”
“I wasn’t aware there was a point to golf.”
He chalked up the enlisted man’s sour mood to fatigue and let it pass unremarked. As pleasant a world as this was, for most of the crew of the Starfleet scout ship Sagittarius, this was a working vacation from space, at best. Most of the tiny Archer-class starship’s fourteen-person crew had enjoyed the uneventful week they had spent parked on the surface. All three of their field scouts were deployed on various assignments, as was the ship’s science officer. So far, all the samples they had gathered and analyzed had suggested this world would be an ideal candidate for a future Federation-sponsored colony.
But all that Terrell cared about on this balmy afternoon was strolling over grass with the top half of his olive green jumpsuit open to catch the breeze, admiring the view of distant, snowcapped mountains, and indulging in the occasional, cathartic swatting of a golf ball.
He strode through a gully between two gentle knolls and stared at the ground until he found his ball. “Here we are. Now, where to go next?”
Every direction offered new wonders. To the north, a field speckled with bright flowers. To the west, a downhill slope that led to a meandering stream. In the east, some huge local fungi that resembled ten-meter-tall shiitake mushrooms. Instinct and a nostalgic longing for the fishing holes of his youth drew Terrell’s gaze westward. “Which club should I use, Torvin?”
Torvin parroted the choice Terrell had made the last twelve times he had asked him this rhetorical question. “The driver, sir?”
“Good choice, Crewman. The driver, please.”
A disgruntled sigh, then Torvin lugged the bag to Terrell and handed him the driver. The engineer backed away to give the captain room for his backswing.
Terrell lined up his shot and drew the club back, in a high curve above his head—
His communicator beeped twice, fouling his swing. He sliced the shot off into a stand of skinny trees with blue foliage. He grumbled for a few seconds before he lifted his communicator from his waist pocket and flipped open its golden antenna grille. “This is Terrell.”
The ship’s second officer, Lieutenant Commander Sorak, replied with arch dryness, “Do forgive the interruption, Captain. Sensors have detected energy readings I think you should see.”
“Are they from the planet’s surface?”
“Negative, sir. From a nearby star system.”
That was a surprise. “Must be quite a powerful reading.”
“Yes, sir. And it’s as intense as it is unusual. Can you return to the ship to discuss it?”
“I’ll be there shortly. Terrell out.” He closed the communicator, put it away, and tossed his driver back to Torvin. “Leave it to duty to spoil a nice walk.”
“Pretty sure the golf did that,” Torvin muttered, tucking away the club.
“Pardon me, Crewman?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Just for that, you get to go find my ball.”
• • •
Fragrances subtle and sweet wafted from the flowers that surrounded Lieutenant Commander Vanessa Theriault. She was lying on her belly at the crest of a small hill, her green jumpsuit blending into the grass, her dark red hair—tinted this week with streaks of purple and white—quite at home among blooms of vibrant crimson and orange.
Through a handheld holographic scope, she observed a herd of graceful, spiral-horned quadrupeds that grazed in a vale on the other side of the hill. Those that weren’t nibbling the grass gamboled and pranced. To the former science officer’s trained eye, the adult members of the herd seemed to be engaged in courting behavior, while the younglings were fiercely at play.
They’re so beautiful! I love their stripe patterns. I wonder if—
Lieutenant Faro Dastin shattered the illusion of bucolic peace by shouting up the hill from behind her, “You know I left the meter running, right?”
On the far side of the hill, the herd bolted from Dastin’s voice, leaving Theriault nothing to admire but the tufted tails on their rumps. She switched off her scope, got up, and walked back down the hill. By the time she reached Dastin, who leaned with crossed arms against the Sagittarius’s high-speed rover, Blitzen, she had shifted her mental gears from her former role of science officer to her current role as first officer.
She confronted the cocky Trill field scout, who stood a head taller than her. “Dastin, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“Sorry, did I scare your sheep?”
“They were more like gazelles, but that’s not important now. What did I tell you before I went up the hill?”
“To stay here.”
“I also told you to stay quiet.”
He scratched absentmindedly at his bearded chin. “Hm. I don’t recall that.”
The urge to throttle him welled up from some dark place deep inside her. She suppressed it and took a few seconds to collect herself before she continued. “I was hoping to put this off until we’d finished the survey and started back, but I guess now’s as good a time as any.” She looked him in the eye. “Do you know why I made you my driver today?”
An idiot’s grin. “You felt the need for speed?”
Decorum forbade her from replying, Because I wanted to bring you someplace I could dispose of your body and be sure it would never be found.
“No, Dastin. I need you to stop acting like an ass.”
He recoiled in what looked like honest surprise. “I’m sorry—what?”
“You’ve been mouthing off to me in front of the crew ever since Terrell made me the XO, and I’m sick of it. I know we play fast and loose with ranks and formalities on this boat, but we still have a chain of command. I don’t make a habit of pulling rank, but if you don’t secure your lip I’ll do it for you.”
“Really? How, exactly, would you secure my lip?”
She furrowed her brow in anger and confusion. “Are you sassing me, or hitting on me?”
“Definitely not hitting on you, sir.”
“How can I be sure of that?”
An innocent shrug. “You’re not my type.”
“Smart and confident?”
His brow wrinkled, as if the next detail should have been obvious. “Female.”
“Ah. Okay.” She let that sink in. “So, am I to understand that you’re just being a pain in my ass for the entertainment value?”
He nodded jauntily. “Pretty much.”
“Then mind your step, Lieutenant. I know where you sleep.”
“Like I said, sir, I don’t swing that way.”
“You must like your grave deep, ’cause you don’t know when to stop digging.”
A rakish smirk. “Sure I do. I always stop right before I hit a court-martial.”
“Don’t be so sure.” She lifted open the rover’s passenger-side front door. “Get back in the rover. I want to finish the survey before it gets dark.”
“As you command.” He circled the front of the all-terrain vehicle, got in, and pulled the gull-wing door closed behind him. He looked at her. “This is about Starbase Twelve, isn’t it?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“That Efrosian bartender? In the officers’ club?”
“What about him?”
“You thought he was hitting on you. Then he ditched you.”
“He was totally hitting on me.”
A pained frown and a shake of his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What makes you so—” She read the hidden meaning in his look of feigned remorse. Despite her best efforts to remain stoic, she felt her face tense into a scowl.
“Stop shoveling and drive.”
• • •
Rough, icy wind buffeted the rocky face of the mountain and stirred dust around the feet of Lieutenant Sengar Hesh. The science officer perched at the edge of a narrow outcropping of jagged rock, holding his tricorder over the edge with one hand. Oscillating tones from the device were drowned out by the peak’s wintry gale. Hesh leaned back and reviewed his scans of the exposed cliff face below him. It contained numerous strata of vivid stone and sediment, from which he had gleaned a trove of data about the planet’s geological history.
Remarkable! Who says that stones cannot speak? They tell me all their secrets.
He pivoted to share his findings with engineer Karen Cahow, his travel companion for the day. The young human woman stood with her arms raised and rocked back and forth, from one foot to the other. A gust of cold air tousled her hay bale of hair. She met Hesh’s quizzical stare with her blue eyes wide, beaming with the thrill of discovery. “It’s just so weird!”
He wondered if this was an affectation peculiar to humans. As an Arkenite and a relative newcomer to the larger universe beyond his homeworld, Hesh often found himself at a loss to explain the behaviors of some of his shipmates on the Sagittarius. “What do you find odd?”
She became almost giddy. “Real gravity.” Her swaying became more exaggerated. “I never get used to it. It’s just so . . . consistent!” A lean too far knocked her off-balance, and she ceased her clumsy solo dance with the planet. “Don’t you notice the difference?”