The Higher Frontier

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Looking up at Spock, he saw that the Vulcan had reached the same conclusion. “I see what you mean,” Thelin said. “If the transport passed through a higher dimension, it would explain how it left no ionization traces and how it circumvented the damping fields.”

  Nizhoni stared at him. “Commander, are you telling me that we’re dealing with an enemy that can beam clear through shields?”

  “That is far from certain,” Spock cautioned. “Even normal transporters operate partially through the dimensions of subspace, which is what enables them to transmit through solid matter. This may simply be a variant application of the confinement beam principle.

  “However,” he added, “under the circumstances, we cannot afford to ignore more … pessimistic interpretations. Until we know more about these attackers, we cannot rule out the possibility that they could strike anytime … and anywhere.”

  “Naazh,” Thelin said, remembering how the dying Aenar had christened them in blood. “Phantoms. Truly, it is a fitting name.”

  Five

  U.S.S. Enterprise

  “So what’s your reaction to T’Nalae’s attitude?”

  Reiko Onami studied the four New Humans who sat with her in the forward observation lounge on H deck, a favorite place for them to gather and meditate together. Onami hadn’t wanted to call them into her office for a formal session, since they had been the recipients of the bad behavior—and since this meeting was as much out of curiosity on her part as any kind of formal counseling. Her title was “xenopsychologist,” and these were her fellow humans; but from Onami’s perspective, humans had always been as “xeno-” as anyone else, and New Humans in particular might even represent the dawning of a new subspecies, like the Aenar. As a scientist, she couldn’t pass up investigating that phenomenon, if only on an informal basis.

  Daniel Abioye, Jade Dinh, and Edward Logan traded looks, but deferred to Marcella DiFalco to speak for them. Abioye was an ensign, the only officer in the room, yet the soft-spoken West African acted no different from the other enlisted New Humans when he was among them.

  “It’s nothing we haven’t faced before,” DiFalco said after finishing her silent exchange with the others. Onami wondered how much of that was genuine telepathy and how much was just groupthink. “Rarely here in Starfleet, of course, since most of us embrace the new and different. But other New Humans on Earth, Deneb, and elsewhere have encountered the occasional few who didn’t understand us, or didn’t want to.”

  “Humans today take pride in our common humanity,” Abioye added in a soft, deep voice, “but we can be inflexible about what ‘humanity’ means. The Eugenics Wars were long ago, but the Augment crisis last century reawakened old fears.”

  “There’s mistrust of people who have more power than others,” said the shaven-headed, tough-looking Logan. “We celebrate egalitarianism, which can create mistrust of exceptionalism.”

  “Not that we think we’re better than anyone else,” added Dinh, who wore her silky black hair loose when off duty, letting it fall clear to her waist. “We learned to strengthen our powers through commitment and meditation. It’s just about unlocking our latent potential.”

  “Are you sure?” Onami countered. “I did some digging—the vast majority of rated espers haven’t had the same increase in psi abilities as those of you who’ve adopted the New Human label. Hell, I have a thirty-nine esper rating myself, and it hasn’t budged since V’Ger came.”

  DiFalco spoke with the tone of someone trying not to sound pitying. “We don’t fully understand yet why only some of us have been able to unlock our potential. But our numbers grow every day,” she assured Onami, reaching out to touch her hand. “I’m sure you’ll have your awakening in time.”

  Logan leaned closer and gave her a flirtatious smile. “We’d be happy to meditate with you, try to help you unlock your gift.” Behind his back, Dinh and Abioye rolled their eyes. Onami was pretty sure Logan was sleeping with both of them; New Humans tended to be open and casual about such things, as part of their philosophy of communal love and unity. So they showed no sign of jealousy, but they did seem amused by Logan’s blatantness.

  “I have a partner already, thanks,” Onami said. “If I could just look into someone’s head and see what the problem was, it’d take the challenge out of it. And yes, I know it’s not that simple,” she added when DiFalco opened her mouth. “I was kidding.”

  “You are curious, though, right?” DiFalco asked. “You came to us informally, not because you had to, but because you wanted to.” At Onami’s stare, she added, “I wasn’t probing your thoughts, but emotions kind of … shine through.”

  “Yours shine very brightly,” Logan added with what he thought was a charming grin.

  Dinh socked his arm. “I’d say it’s more like a glare.”

  “Sure, I’m curious,” Onami told them. “But scientifically. I’m interested in how different cultures mix and bounce off each other, how they blend or how they clash. You’re building a new culture as we watch, splitting off from regular humanity.”

  DiFalco’s eyes widened. “We’re not—is that how it seems to you, Reiko? We don’t want to isolate ourselves.”

  “We want to reach out and share what we’ve gained,” Abioye finished for her.

  “Maybe,” Onami said. “But you four have become pretty much inseparable. You spend all your free time together, and that does set you apart from the rest of us. You share something we can’t.”

  “Is that why T’Nalae mistrusts us?” DiFalco asked.

  “I’ll tell you what I told her: The best way to get that understanding is from the source. I hope you and she can work out your differences; I’m just trying to nudge you the right way.”

  Dinh looked around at the others. “I guess we have formed kind of a bubble around ourselves the past couple of years. We get so caught up in each other we lose track of other connections.”

  “That’s not always so bad,” Abioye said. “I’m glad I got past the artificial hierarchy of officer and enlisted.”

  “But on the other hand,” Logan teased, “Jade hasn’t remembered to get a haircut in four years.”

  Dinh stroked Logan’s carefully maintained, Deltan-smooth scalp. “I’m just balancing you out, Ed the Egghead. The Law of Conservation of Hair.”

  Onami left the meeting with most of her questions about the New Humans still open, but she had gotten one answer, at least: despite their increasing mental bonds, they were still as imperfectly, irritatingly human as ever.

  Homeworld Security Headquarters

  Laikan

  Arashiki ch’Rushima crossed his arms and gave a sullen shrug, fidgeting slightly under the piercing stare of Captain sh’Zava. “Exterminate the Aenar?” he asked, then scoffed. “Why bother? The terraforming already did most of the work. The rest is only a matter of time.”

  From his vantage point to the side of the interrogation room table, Kirk studied the Blue Sky leader’s reaction as the Homeworld Security captain leaned over him, no less intimidating for her dainty size. “Maybe you got impatient and decided to help the process along,” sh’Zava said. “Wanted to be able to see their extinction within your lifetime.”

  “You don’t understand Blue Sky’s philosophy if you think we’d do that. We serve the pure will of Uzaveh the Infinite, as handed down to Thirishar at the beginning. The dwindling of the Aenar is Uzaveh’s hand at work, and we would blaspheme against Her by usurping the task for ourselves.”

  “Well, if your wonderful Blue Sky organization is so philosophical and hands-off, why have its members been implicated in multiple attacks on offworlders? Why were all of your cells heavily armed when we raided them?”

  “Why have Vulcans and Romulans and Earthers and Klingons been heavily armed when they came to face the Star Empire? Uzaveh made us warriors, so we fight in defense of the Whole.” He glared at sh’Zava’s HS insignia. “Even against Federation lackeys among our own people. But Aenar do not fight, so it is not for us to fi
ght them. They are merely an aberration in the process of being corrected.”

  Ch’Rushima’s gaze hardened. “Whoever struck them down came from outside. That makes this an alien attack on Andor—something that your vaunted ‘Homeworld Security’ is supposed to protect us from. Most likely, they struck at the Aenar first as a test run, before daring to take on foes who could defend themselves. We should be on the same side in this, hunting down the violators of our world so we can stop them before they attack again.” He threw a glare toward Kirk. “Instead, you work with pink skins to persecute fellow Andorians.”

  Kirk took the Blue Sky leader’s xenophobic rant as his cue to step forward, placing a data slate on the table before ch’Rushima. “If you’re so hostile toward aliens, then how do you explain this correspondence we recovered from your computers? You managed to erase a lot of it, but we recognized the contact codes and message protocols of the Redheri Trade Consortium. Oh, yes,” he added as ch’Rushima stiffened in surprise. “We’ve encountered the Redheri before, and they’re about as alien as they come. But we know your group has made overtures to them, seeking access to exotic technology.”

  Sh’Zava picked up the thread. “What technology were you bargaining for? Was it, perhaps, an advanced form of transporter? One that could penetrate the Aenar’s damping fields undetected?”

  Watching the extremist leader closely, Kirk couldn’t deny that he seemed genuinely surprised by the suggestion. “Is that how it was done? If they have such a transporter, all the more reason we need to unite against these invaders!”

  Kirk traded a look with sh’Zava. After a moment’s wordless communication, he let her ask the next question. She sat opposite ch’Rushima and moderated her tone. “Very well, then. If you wish to convince me you’re on my side, then reassure me of your intentions. Tell us what technology you sought from the Redheri.”

  The extremist winced, his antennae folding back in what seemed like shame. “We … hadn’t gotten that far in our negotiations yet. We just wanted … something. Something advanced, something beyond Federation science, something from a civilization distant enough that its origins could be obscured. They said they had access to ancient ruins, relics from civilizations millennia ahead of ours.”

  Sh’Zava frowned. “If you didn’t know what you wanted, why were you seeking it?”

  “So that …” His embarrassment was more obvious now as he wrestled with himself, then finally spat out the words. “So that we could take credit for its invention! So that we could prove Andorian superiority with some breakthrough beyond anything the pink skins or green skins had ever achieved.”

  Kirk shared another look with the HS captain, but it was clear they’d already arrived at the same conclusion. For all its bluster, Blue Sky was far too pathetic to be the threat they sought.

  * * *

  “… And Blue Sky was our best lead,” Thamizhan sh’Zava concluded as she reported to the group gathered around the conference room table, including Kirk, Spock, Chekov, Jones, Kollos, and Thelin. “Their overtures to the Redheri made them the only domestic radical group that could have had access to unknown transporter tech.”

  “And even that was tenuous,” Kirk added. “My crew and I have dealt with the Redheri more than once. Their values are different from ours—they’re willing to interfere with pre-warp cultures to open trade with them, and they can be reckless in their efforts to exploit advanced relic technologies—but they see themselves as benevolent, engaging in free commerce for the betterment of everyone. The Aenar massacre was big enough news to reach beyond the Federation. If they’d heard about it and recognized the use of a technology they’d sold to Blue Sky, I believe they would’ve come forward.”

  “Indeed,” Spock affirmed. “The Trade Consortium would perceive it as a breach of contract and a stain upon their reputation—such as it is—and would have sought to exact financial penalties upon the parties involved.”

  “So that’s a dead end,” sh’Zava said. “And none of the other pro-terraforming groups are promising as suspects. They all seemed genuinely horrified at what happened to the Aenar. They may have opposed their politics or seen them as an economic threat, but wanting them driven to extinction is a radically different matter. And they all volunteered to submit to verifier scans to confirm it.” She sighed. “Granted, that’s not as reliable a technology as it was believed to be a decade ago, but many laypeople still don’t know that, so the fact that they were willing to volunteer is telling.”

  “There is one other key data point to consider,” Spock put in. “Ambassador Kollos?”

  The Medusan spoke through Miranda Jones, whose face and voice conveyed some of his usual enthusiasm and curiosity, now tempered by solemnity and sorrow. “I took detailed psionic scans of the Aenar compound using the sensors built into my habitat. It took me a while to analyze the readings, since there was so much psionic residue left on the scene by the Aenar. But I can now say with high confidence that there were non-Aenar psionic signatures involved in the massacre.”

  Sh’Zava stared. “Can you explain how you know this?”

  “Well, psionic phenomena aren’t magic. They involve a class of exotic particles called psions, which interact using psionic energy fields, much like how electrons interact through electromagnetism. Certain sentient brains are able to resonate with the quantum wave patterns of psionic fields, enabling them to use those fields for communication, or to manipulate psion particles for telekinetic interaction with normal matter.”

  “You can scan for these psion particles?”

  “Yes, and for the residual psionic field charges they leave in affected matter. Each telepathic or telekinetic species emits its own characteristic psionic signature, similar to its electromagnetic brain-wave signature and shaped by its distinct neural anatomy in corresponding ways. I became familiar with Aenar psionic signatures during the process of testing them for the Medusan navigational program. That familiarity enabled me to filter out those signatures and confirm the presence of additional, non-Aenar signatures. I’d estimate four or five distinct patterns, which agrees with the five distinct stride patterns we found on the scene.”

  The HS captain sighed. “If any of the extremist groups had psi abilities, I presume we’d know about it.”

  Thelin folded his hands on the table in front of him. “Psionic abilities are all but unheard of in non-Aenar Andorians. I am a quarter Aenar myself, but my psi rating is essentially zero.”

  “And there’s no chance, Ambassador, that these extra psi signatures could be Aenar? Perhaps if some of the Aenar went mad, lashed out in violence against their own kind, it would alter their telepathic spoor?”

  Jones’s head shook as Kollos answered through her. “It would not alter their signatures that significantly. Nor would it explain the evidence of telekinetic abilities being used. While telekinesis is not unheard of among the Aenar, it’s never been recorded to this extent.”

  Kirk frowned. “What about … I know it’s a crazy idea, Spock, but what about kironide poisoning? You and I discovered on Platonius that kironide injections can induce telekinetic ability in humans and Vulcans, at least briefly.” And not without cost, he added to himself, feeling a moment of psychosomatic nausea as he recalled the unpleasant aftereffects of kironide toxicity and the similarly unpleasant chelation therapy he and Spock had endured for a week after their departure from Platonius. It had been the only way to escape imprisonment and torture at the hands of the sadistic Platonians, but the consequences had been almost as bad as the torture.

  Spock shook his head. “While it has been difficult to experiment with kironide-induced telekinesis due to the hazards of heavy-metal poisoning, simulations have proven unable to replicate the effect outside the specific environmental conditions of the planet Platonius. Evidently the high proportion of kironide in the planet’s crust and biosphere turns the entire planet into a psionic resonator, which beings who absorb and metabolize sufficient quantities of kironide are able to
connect with. Kironide is found only in trace quantities on Andor, insufficient to produce a comparable effect.”

  “It seems,” said Thelin, “that we are left with nothing but the name we found scrawled in blood. Naazh, or phantoms. Vicious, seemingly supernatural killers. If they were psionic, at a level well beyond the Aenar, it could explain that description.”

  “And maybe their motive,” Chekov suggested. “Some kind of grudge against rival telepaths. Vulcans or Betazoids could be in danger too.”

  “Everything we learn makes our job more difficult,” sh’Zava said, grimacing. “How do we protect against an unknown, outside enemy that can penetrate our defenses undetected? One whose motives are as obscure now as when we started?”

  Kirk thought for a moment. “I recommend moving all the surviving Aenar to the Enterprise. We know they can penetrate transporter damping fields, but that doesn’t mean they can beam through a starship’s full shields.”