INTO THE NEBULA

by Gene DeWeese

  Chapter Seven

  KHOZAK AND ZALKAN, once they recovered from their first sight of Worf, were silent as the shuttlecraft shot up through the hazy atmosphere and into only slightly less hazy space. As the approaching Enterprise loomed ever larger until its graceful lines and colorful lights were all they could see, Denbahr was the only one to speak.

  “This thing actually moves? Faster than light?”

  Riker only smiled and surreptitiously motioned Data to remain quiet. She had digested the rudiments of transporter technology with remarkable ease, but there was no reason, yet, to get into warp theory, which virtually no one truly understood.

  As Riker had requested, Counselor Troi was waiting for them when they emerged from the shuttlecraft, her eyes meeting his in brief acknowledgment of their conspiracy before turning her full attention to the three Krantinese.

  Except for Data, who had data to analyze, the entire group made their way to the bridge, where Picard was waiting. As they started from there to a conference room, Riker and Troi lagged behind, ostensibly waiting for a second turbolift.

  Riker turned questioningly to Troi the moment the doors closed behind the others.

  “The woman is by far the most open,” Troi began without further prompting. “I can sense no desire to hold anything back, only a—a feeling of hope or optimism, something I gather she has not had before. There is also an overwhelming impatience to ‘get on with it,’ to waste no more time.”

  Riker nodded. “That’s how she struck me as well, although she was very skeptical at first contact. But the moment she entered the shuttlecraft and saw Worf, it was as if every doubt she had vanished. From that point on, she’s been focused almost entirely on getting help for her world. But what about the other two?”

  “Both are very guarded. The one called Khozak is more suspicious than skeptical, I think. Each new sight, each new crew member he saw, he became more tense. He simply doesn’t trust us or Koralus. He may not even believe we are who we say we are. He’s very wary, very apprehensive. The other, the scientist, is more puzzling. With him, there is very little feeling of distrust, but a great sense of fear.”

  “Fear? Of what? Of us? Of the Plague?”

  “It is difficult to tell. Perhaps I can learn more as you and the captain discuss things with him. But he is definitely holding things back to a much greater degree than President Khozak.”

  “Even though he trusts us?”

  “Perhaps ‘believes’ is a better word. I don’t think he doubts that we are who we say we are, nor that we mean to help if we can. Khozak, on the other hand, reacts to all of us like someone who is afraid we might stab him in the back regardless of who we are or what we want. Zalkan’s fear is different. It is not a fear of us but of something or someone else, and it is quite strong. At the same time, underneath it, there is a feeling of hope that is almost as strong as Denbahr’s.”

  “I suppose I was being naive, hoping for a simple answer.”

  “Where feelings are concerned, Will,” she said with a rueful smile, “answers are rarely simple.”

  Riker sighed. “Unfortunately true. There are times I envy Data.”

  “But not many, I sense.”

  A smile slipped briefly across his face. “No, I suppose not.”

  They were silent as the turbolift doors opened and deposited them a few meters from the conference room. “The scientist, Zalkan, is also quite ill, I believe,” Troi said.

  Riker nodded. “I suspected as much. Do you think he would allow Beverly to look him over?”

  “It’s hard to say, Will. He might. Khozak, never. He mistrusts us too much. Simply being on the Enterprise is as much as he can take.”

  “And Koralus?”

  “He is much like the woman, except I don’t feel that he shares her optimism. It’s almost as if he were consciously trying to keep his hopes reined in.”

  “Understandable, considering what happened to him and the Hope. And possibly to the other generation ships as well.”

  Both fell silent as the door to the conference room hissed open and they stepped inside. Except for Data, everyone was there, Picard at the head of the table. Riker and Troi took two of the seats left vacant on Picard’s right, facing the four aliens on the opposite side of the long table. Geordi, who had already delivered the laser unit to Engineering, was at the far end, next to Worf.

  A moment later, the door hissed open again and Data came quickly through and seated himself next to Troi. Leaning close, in a voice barely audible to Riker, he said, “Counselor, if it is not entirely outside your purview, I would appreciate your spending a few moments observing Spot when you have the opportunity.”

  Troi’s eyebrows rose slightly as she turned toward the android. “Your cat?”

  “Yes, Counselor. I stopped in my quarters to assure myself she was all right, and she seemed unusually . . . nervous.”

  Troi smiled and Riker suppressed a laugh. “I assume you’re familiar with the expression ‘nervous as a cat,’ Data,” Troi said.

  “Certainly, Counselor, but I do not believe it has ever been applicable to Spot. Even during her pregnancy and temporary devolution, she remained quite calm.”

  Before Troi could answer, Picard was speaking. “Mr. La Forge, a preliminary report?”

  “The laser unit is being analyzed in Engineering. Based on its appearance and on Technician Denbahr’s explanation of its function, we should be able to duplicate it with little difficulty.”

  Denbahr, directly across from Data, leaned back with a grin and an explosive sigh of relief. “I knew you could do it!”

  Geordi smiled at her enthusiasm but shook his head. “No guarantees, at least not until the analysis is complete. And even then, we won’t be one hundred percent certain until a new unit is produced and is actually installed and operating.”

  “I understand,” she said, but her grin remained broad despite Geordi’s caveat and the disapproving frown directed at her by President Khozak.

  Picard, after an almost imperceptible glance toward Troi, turned to the four Krantinese, and as he did, a hologram of the first of the two alien ships appeared in the air above the conference table.

  All four looked startled, but only Khozak darted a frowning look toward Picard. The eyes of the other three seemed glued to the image, even those of Koralus, who had seen it all before on the main viewscreen.

  Troi surveyed all four silently, with no show of emotion, but after a few seconds, her gaze settled on the scientist Zalkan.

  “This is an image of the first ship we encountered in your system,” Picard said. “It appears to be a cargo vessel with an impulse drive barely powerful enough to move it from one asteroid to the next. Is it familiar to any of you?”

  Picard looked slowly and deliberately from one to the next, addressing each by name as his eyes met theirs. One by one, they denied it, Khozak belligerently, Denbahr with a puzzled shake of her head, Zalkan with an expressionless “No.”

  “Or this?” With Picard’s words, the cargo vessel was replaced by the second, smaller ship. “It appeared to be a scout ship of some kind. It, too, was equipped with an impulse drive.”

  Khozak’s frown became a scowl as he shook his head. “Your people were already told we know nothing of any ships—or anything else—that you may have found in the Plague! It has been a hundred years since we sent anything or anyone into space.”

  “I understand that, President Khozak,” Picard said. “But I also understand that your world was in space for many years before you were forced to retreat to Krantin entirely.”

  “But we did retreat! We had no choice! I see no reason to show us these objects when it is perfectly obvious none of us could ever have seen anything like them!”

  “Please accept my apologies for any offense you might feel,” Picard said. “However, I felt it important to determine if these ships bore any resemblance to those that your people built and used in centuries past.”

  “I wouldn’t know! The
history of our efforts at space travel is not something that has ever occupied my thoughts! Except occasionally,” he added with a glare at Koralus, “to curse the Deserters and the waste they were responsible for!”

  “I can confirm that neither ship bears any resemblance to anything ever built or conceived of on Krantin,” Koralus said softly, “at least prior to my departure. In my role as a leader of the so-called Deserters, I made it my business to be familiar with every type of spacecraft and propulsion system ever built or proposed, and I neither saw nor heard of anything like these two, certainly none powered by this ‘impulse drive’ you mention.”

  “Thank you,” Picard said, returning his eyes to the image that still hung above the table. “This,” he went on as the image started to move, “is what happened when it vanished.”

  Except for Khozak, who fidgeted irritably, the Krantinese watched the image by image disappearance of both ships raptly.

  “Those flashes,” Denbahr said when the last image faded, “those are the ‘transporter energies’ you say you detected?”

  “The flashes were only the visible signature of the energies involved,” Data volunteered when Picard nodded in his direction. “In effect, what you saw was a waste product of the process.”

  Denbahr’s eyes widened. “You’re saying that was only a small part of the energy that made those ships disappear.”

  “That is correct. With our own transporters there is a similar but much smaller visible signature. The process used on these ships was much less efficient, almost crude by comparison.”

  “But even with this signature,” Zalkan said, straightening in his chair with a visible effort, “you are unable to determine where these ships were transported to.”

  “So far, that is true,” Picard said, and then continued, overriding any other questions, “What I would like now is for each of you to tell us as much as you can about the Plague. If we are to have any chance of understanding it, any chance of learning what, if any, connection it has with these ships, we will need all the information you can give us.”

  It was not surprising to Riker that Denbahr was the first to respond, nor that she responded enthusiastically and encyclopedically. Even so, except for outlining Zalkan’s persistent suspicion that the effects of the Plague decreased as you went deeper underground, she provided little beyond the basics. No one knew precisely when the Plague had started. It had been fouling the atmosphere of Krantin for at least five hundred years, and it had been detected in nearby space, starting in the midst of the asteroid belt, not long after. No source had ever been found, certainly nothing as obvious as a fleet of ships like the ones the Enterprise had seen, and no barrier had ever proven perfect. Most but not all of the planetary pollution seemed to form in the upper reaches of the atmosphere and drift downward. Increasingly in the last few decades, however, it had been appearing lower down, including inside the enclosed cities, and only massive filtering and recirculation systems kept the interior air breathable. Worst of all, hard vacuums—the sort needed in the laser units—were becoming contaminated ever more rapidly.

  When she was finished, there was little the others could add, nor did they try, except for Zalkan, who cautiously explained that it was the progression of the Plague downward through the atmosphere that was responsible for his theory and his subsequent efforts to move everything underground, starting with the power plant and the facilities used to build new laser units.

  When nothing else was forthcoming except more of Khozak’s questions about the Federation, Picard rose, cutting the discussion short and offering to arrange for a tour of the Enterprise, individually or together, before they were returned to Krantin. “I will be certain,” he added to Khozak, “that whoever escorts you will be able to answer all of your questions.”

  The president accepted immediately, while Denbahr said she would very much like a tour as well, but could it wait until she and Commander La Forge checked on the progress with the laser unit. Only Zalkan was reluctant, wanting to return to Krantin as soon as possible, at which point Troi caught Picard’s eye and almost imperceptibly shook her head.

  “You can all wait here,” Picard continued without missing a beat, “and I will send someone to escort whoever wishes to see the rest of the Enterprise. In the meantime, Commander La Forge, you can escort Technician Denbahr to Engineering to check on their progress with the laser unit.”

  A minute later, Picard and the other officers, except for Geordi, who was already on his way to Engineering with Denbahr, were in the corridor outside the conference room.

  Hurriedly, Troi filled them in on what she had already told Riker and went on to tell them what she had learned in the conference room. “Zalkan recognized those ships,” she said, “I’m sure of it. They are part of whatever it is that he’s afraid of. The others recognized nothing. And the president, despite his lack of trust for us and his dislike of Koralus—which is completely mutual—did not appear to be lying in any way. Another odd thing is Zalkan’s reaction to Koralus. He has said nothing, but I sense what I can only describe as a degree of admiration and affection in his feelings toward Koralus. And he was offended whenever Khozak made one of his remarks about the ‘Deserters.’ ”

  “Good work, Counselor,” Picard said. “Do you have any suggestions for getting the truth out of Zalkan?”

  “Other than questioning him directly, no,” she said, “and I doubt that he would respond well to that. His fear of those ships or what they represent is too great, although this time I was able to detect an undercurrent of anger as well as fear.”

  “We could start,” Riker volunteered, “by seeing if he would be interested in our medical services. Deanna and I discussed this briefly before, and we feel that, in addition to possibly helping him, it could be informative.”

  Picard nodded thoughtfully. “Very well. Counselor, suggest it as tactfully as you can. See how he reacts.”

  The scientist’s outward reaction was almost nonexistent, a slight tensing of the jaw but nothing more. Behind that mask, however, Troi sensed a flare of hope that for a moment overcame the fear that had been a constant, debilitating presence from the moment she had first encountered him in the shuttlebay. There was no anger at her presumption in making the suggestion, no hint of denial of his illness, just the sudden flare of hope, but an instant later, the fear flooded back, smothering the hope and turning it to despair.

  Lowering his eyes, he shook his head in the gesture of negation that so many humanoid races seemed to adopt. “I appreciate the offer, but I must return to Krantin as soon as possible.”

  Troi smiled soothingly. “Our medical technology is such that Dr. Crusher could perform a reasonably comprehensive examination in a few minutes. It would be completed long before a shuttlecraft will be available to take you and the others down.”

  He was silent for several seconds, and Troi could sense the battle raging within him despite the continuing surface calm. Finally he nodded. “Very well,” he said. “As long as my return is not delayed.”

  As he walked with her toward the turbolift, however, it was obvious to Troi that his inner battle was far from over. It was only slightly less obvious that Zalkan knew more than he was admitting about his own illness and that, at least in his mind, there was a connection between the illness and whatever it was about the disappearing ships that he feared.

  The results of a complete scan with a medical tricorder were, at best, puzzling. No single reading or group of readings was radically different from those obtained from a similar scan given Koralus shortly after he first came on board. Every organ, every cell seemed to be functioning approximately the way it was intended to function—except at a drastically lowered level of efficiency.

  Zalkan sighed when Dr. Crusher told him the results. “Old age,” he murmured. “I take it that’s one medical problem you haven’t yet solved.”

  “Not entirely, no,” she said. “However, your readings are not consistent with those resulting from normal agin
g.”

  “How can you be so certain? After all, your only reference points are the readings you obtained from Koralus.”

  “I can’t be certain, of course. However, there is a progression that is common to most advanced life-forms, almost universal to humanoids, and your readings do not conform to that progression.”

  “But there is nothing you can do to help me, am I right?”

  “We have no magical cure for whatever this is, Zalkan, I’ll admit that. However, if we were allowed to do a more detailed examination, comparing the inner workings of your cells with those of Koralus or others—”

  “And this detailed comparison—I assume it would take more time than the few minutes it took to run your machine over my body.”

  “Longer, yes, hours perhaps.”

  “Or days?”

  “That is also a possibility. It all depends on what we find and how deep we have to go.”

  He shook his head firmly. “No, I must return to Krantin with the others.”

  And that was his final word. He insisted on joining Denbahr, who was being shown around Engineering by Geordi now that she had been convinced there was nothing more she could do to help with the laser unit. Once there, Troi saw, the scientist became so involved with Geordi’s running commentary that the cloud of fear and impatience that seemed to hover over him constantly almost dissipated. It returned with a vengeance, however, when they reached the towering matter-antimatter reactor and Geordi did his best to give them a simplified explanation of its inner workings, dilithium crystals and all. From then on, despite continued outer calm, Zalkan was so distracted it was doubtful that he heard one word in ten that Geordi spoke.

  By the time the tour was completed and they rejoined Picard and Riker to make their way back to the shuttlebay, cracks in Zalkan’s surface calm were beginning to show, and he flinched visibly when Picard revealed that a second pair of energy surges had been detected from roughly the same areas of Krantin that had produced the earlier surges.