by David Mack
She was secured with metallic bonds to a platform similar to one used in some cultures for executions or medical experiments; it was set upright, but inclined backward approximately fifteen degrees. It had winglike extensions to which her outstretched arms were strapped, and her feet were parted by about half a meter, rendering her into a pose not unlike that of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous illustration Vitruvian Man. Restraints precluded any large movements of her head, but it provided ample padding and neck support.
Nice to see someone had comfort in mind.
A few moments of struggle confirmed her bonds were too strong for her to break. Freeing herself by force would not be an option. That left deceit as her best option.
Resigned to her captivity, at least in the short term, she let the tension ebb from her limbs. Between breaths, she listened to the low-frequency thrumming that suffused her surroundings. Felt the steady vibrations in the platform beneath her. Tasted the cold, antiseptic quality of the air pumping through the grates of the ventilation system.
I’m either on a starship moving at high warp, or in an excellent simulation of one.
Another look around her cell revealed more details. Panels marked with icons associated with medicine—some for biohazards, others for pharmaceuticals, some for surgical tools—led her to suspect she had been placed in a compartment designed for medical procedures. The lack of a spectators’ gallery suggested that whatever happened in here, it wasn’t intended to have an audience. She couldn’t see a door, so she assumed it was behind her.
This was a room designed by a professional in the art of interrogation, a space made to contain people of extraordinary strength and skill. It had no obvious vulnerabilities, no blind spots. There was nothing within her reach that would let her slip her bonds. It offered no way for her to get sufficient leverage or reach to cause harm to anyone, not even to herself.
Sarina heard the muffled sound of a door gasping open, followed by a thunk of magnetic locks retracting before a nearer door hissed open.
An airlock system, she deduced. Definitely a medical containment suite.
Soft footsteps padded closer. She recognized their weight and cadence, and greeted her captor even before she revealed herself. “Hello, L’Haan.”
The Vulcan woman stopped in front of Sarina and looked her in the eye. Her Cleopatra-style hairdo was as perfect as ever, leading Sarina to wonder uncharitably if it might be a wig. “Hello, Agent Douglas. Are you ready to begin?”
“Depends. What are we doing? Pilates? Bikram yoga? Because if it’s one of those, I might need a bit more range of motion.”
Her sarcasm drew no apparent reaction from L’Haan, who began affixing cortical stimulators to Sarina’s temples and forehead. “Though I feel neither mercy nor pity for what you are about to endure, neither do I take pleasure in it. For expediency, I suggest you not resist.”
Panic set Sarina’s heart racing, but she put on a brave face. “L’Haan, what’re you doing? There’s no need for this. We’re on the same side.”
“Spare us your charade, Agent Douglas. Your status as a double agent has been known to us since the beginning. A fact we realize you and Doctor Bashir have known for some time.”
It was all true, but desperation compelled Sarina to double down on her lie. “I don’t know where you get your intel, L’Haan, but it’s way off the mark. Julian and I—”
“Have been reporting secretly to Starfleet Intelligence for the past two years.” She started to connect thick cables from nearby bulkhead panels to Sarina’s table. “They recruited you first, in the hope they could prime you as a weapon against us. Later, you volunteered to recruit Bashir for us—something your SI handlers also told you to do, before the Salavat mission.”
Sarina’s years of lies were unraveling and taking her composure with them. “L’Haan, please. I told my SI contacts only what they needed to hear to give us—”
“We know about Ilirra Deel. We’ve tracked all your not-so-subtle meetings with her. Did you really think you could elude our scrutiny by reporting to a Betazoid who reads your thoughts?” The Vulcan woman leaned close to Sarina, magnifying the menace in her rhetorical query. “Did you really think we don’t have telepaths of our own?”
The accusations left Sarina stunned and speechless. She watched L’Haan move around the room and open up panels on the bulkheads to activate systems ensconced behind them. The Section 31 director continued to talk as she circled Sarina, making her preparations.
“You should know that from the start I have objected to the organization’s decision to let you and Doctor Bashir engage in this ridiculous pantomime. Had it been up to me, Sloan would never have approached him in the first place. Failing that, I would rather the doctor had been terminated following his refusal of membership.” She paused to check the settings on one of the systems and made a few minor tweaks. “I likewise counseled against your recruitment, but I was overruled—a phenomenon that has been repeated whenever I have called for your removal. Even now, I harbor grave reservations concerning the organization’s plans for you.” She powered up the last of the machines in the room, then returned to stand in front of Sarina. “But I have persevered in the organization for one simple reason: I am loyal. That absolves many sins.”
L’Haan picked up a crownlike apparatus from a table beside Sarina’s platform and set it upon Sarina’s head, a perverse coronation of impending pain. Sarina mustered what even she could tell was an unconvincing air of defiance. “A tiara? For me? You shouldn’t have.”
“I tire of your pedestrian wit, Agent Douglas. Shall we begin?”
“Begin what?” Her fear took over. “Sounds to me like you already know everything I’m gonna say. So why bother interrogating me?”
If she didn’t know better, she might have sworn she saw L’Haan smile.
“We’re not going to interrogate you, Agent Douglas. We’re going to break you.”
Twenty-six
Under other circumstances Bashir would have wondered whether Data might be pranking him. In theory the android had summoned him and Ozla Graniv to the command deck of Archeus to show them their new refuge, but all Bashir saw outside the canopy was the void of space and the cold shine of distant stars. He threw a confused look at Data. “What are we meant to see?”
“My apologies. I sometimes take my broader spectrum of visual perception for granted. Shakti, please project a false-spectrum overlay to illuminate our destination.” A holographic image flickered onto the canopy. It revealed a rogue planet several million kilometers ahead of Archeus. “Magnify and enhance,” Data said. “I found it roughly two years ago, during my search for—” He stopped, apparently to consider his phrasing. “For assistance in resurrecting Lal.”
Ozla stared in wonder. “Are those readings right? Can there really be life on a planet hurtling alone through the void?”
“Indeed, Ms. Graniv. This rogue is a telluric world with a molten, radioactive metallic core. A combination of thermal venting and retained greenhouse gases enable it to serve as its own heat source and maintain a surface temperature suitable for liquid water.”
She continued to marvel. “How remarkable! Does it have a name?”
“Not as such. I have verified it does not appear on any official star maps or navigational charts known to the Federation or its allies. And I would prefer to keep it that way.”
“Of course,” Graniv said, subduing her reaction. “Very sensible.”
Bashir scrutinized the sensor data about the planet. “Its biosphere looks toxic.”
“Quite correct,” Data said. “The majority of its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen compounds, methane, and carbon dioxide, and its oceans are highly acidified. So it should come as no surprise that most of its flora are inedible by beings who have evolved on Class-M worlds.”
The planet swelled ahead of them, close enough now that its shad
owy presence was visible even without visual augmentation by the ship’s AI. Bashir noted the bright spots that denoted active volcanoes on the planet’s dark surface. “I realize this environment poses little danger to you and Lal, but what of the rest of us? Are we to be confined to the ship?”
“Hardly, Doctor. I was not the first person to find this world. My predecessor built a retreat here—one that continues to stand as a safe haven.” The ship began a steep dive toward the planet. Data nodded at the forward pane of the canopy. “Like this world, it has no official name. But on our previous visits, Lal and I have elected to call it . . . ‘the Ivory Tower.’ ”
Veils of clouds parted ahead of Archeus to reveal a swampy surface shrouded in mist. Rising from the bog was a structure whose architecture was strangely elegant and unmistakably alien. An asymmetrical trio of twisting towers, each composed of several geodesics—soft transitions between the vertical and horizontal planes—stretched up out of the murk and spiraled upward around an open core. Their exteriors, translucent membranes divided into hexagons pulled taut over spiral skeletons with horizontal linkages, evoked a beehive’s honeycomb. All of it glowed with pale cerulean light that glinted off its skeleton of lavender crystal and white metal. Semitransparent habitable bridges linked the towers and gave the structure the aspect of a triple helix. At the waterline, the towers flared outward and formed a shared foundation of fluid curves; just below their crownlike apexes, they were fused by insectile arches.
The doctor’s eyes widened with delight. An Ivory Tower, indeed.
Archeus docked inside a bright, opalescent landing bay in the base of one of the towers. No sooner had the ship touched down than a force field snapped on to protect the bay while it was filled with breathable air for Bashir and Ozla. Lal secured the ship’s controls as Data motioned for Bashir and Ozla to follow him aft. “Come. Let’s get you two settled.”
They followed Data off the ship, across the landing bay, and inside a lift with transparent walls that carried them upward toward the towers’ shared apex. Bashir brimmed with impatience and bristled in silence at the prospect of going into hiding, but Graniv continued to soak in the details of her surroundings. “What are all those systems mounted on the outsides of the towers?”
“They serve a variety of functions,” Data said. “Some are moisture collectors connected to distillation tanks that augment the facility’s supply of potable water. Photovoltaic cladding serves to shield the towers’ interiors from harmful cosmic radiation while charging backup battery arrays, in the event of an emergency that disrupts the fusion generator in the sublevel.” He looked around, sharing Graniv’s awe. “It is a most impressive feat of engineering—one for which I can take no credit, though I very much wish that I could.”
His admission seemed to surprise Graniv. “Is that envy I hear?”
A shrug. “Call it an expression of profound admiration.”
The lift door opened to a curving hallway on the top floor of the tallest tower. Bashir and Ozla followed Data through it to an airy level subdivided by curving partitions riddled with open spaces—forms and textures that echoed the towers’ exteriors. Around them sprawled a lavish penthouse decorated with carved marble sculptures on classic pedestal columns, and oil paintings on framed canvases suspended in midair with wires almost too fine to see—all of them crafted in what looked to Bashir like the unique style of Leonardo da Vinci.
“Quite an impressive art collection,” he said.
Data displayed no affection for the masterpieces. “The least remarkable part of my inheritance, to be honest.” He gestured at the room, whose outer edge was ringed with great sloping windows that looked out on an eternal starry night. “Make yourselves at home.”
“We don’t have time to get comfortable,” Bashir said. “We need to find Sarina.”
“How do you propose we do so, Doctor?” If Data had intended there to be sarcasm in the response, his diction had been so dry that Bashir couldn’t tell.
Bashir’s mind spun in tightening circles of desperation. “I don’t know. Tap into Uraei. Look for any mention of where it’s taken her.”
Graniv looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “They tried that, remember? Nearly fried their AI pal in the process.”
“She is correct, Doctor. Repeating our past effort would be ill-advised.” Data heaved a sigh. “I will let the two of you decide which rooms you prefer for your accommodations.”
Bashir was appalled at his host’s passivity. “That’s it? We’re calling it a night?”
“It’s been a hard journey, Doctor. Try to rest. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
“Why? What happens tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we make a plan to save Sarina.”
• • •
Two days had passed—at least, it had felt like two days to Ozla. On a rogue planet with no parent star and no natural satellite, there were no external cues for what constituted day, night, or any other arbitrary unit of time. Even the stars themselves seemed to hang motionless. Only her wrist chrono, recently synchronized to the chronometer on Archeus, gave her any sense of how many days, hours, and minutes had elapsed while she had sat in the Ivory Tower, taking notes and penning a handwritten draft of the biggest story of her career while listening to Bashir and Data argue over jargon and minutiae she could hardly comprehend.
The debate had gone in circles. It was maddening—Bashir had proposed one lunatic, suicidal scheme after another, only to be coaxed off his rhetorical ledge each time by the calm advice of Data. This morning’s argument promised nothing but more of the same.
“How can you tell me we lack the ability to track Thirty-one’s ships?”
“As I explained, Doctor, monitoring their vessels operating in the open is more than possible. The difficulty lies in trying to find their cloaked starships—and all evidence we have acquired so far suggests that is where Sarina is most likely to be.”
“Then how do we find the cloaked ships?” The doctor paced in front of the android, who stood in the middle of the penthouse’s main room and pivoted just enough to keep Bashir in the center of his vision. “Thirty-one must have some way of communicating with all its ships, even the ones hidden by cloaking devices.”
Data conceded the point with a nod. “They do. They use Uraei.”
“Then why can’t we use it the same way?”
“Because we lack access to Thirty-one’s master cipher key. And before you ask why we haven’t used Uraei to procure the key, the answer is twofold. First, our foes took the precaution of isolating that information beyond the reach of networked computers. Second, the kernel of Uraei’s code we possess is but a fragment of the full entity; it has nowhere near the power, the features, or the access to compromise all of Thirty-one’s various systems in known space.”
Ozla looked up from her scribbled transcript of their conversation and interjected with cynical humor, “Why don’t you kidnap one of their people and trade for Sarina?” The silence that followed was freighted with the promise of bad decisions to come.
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Bashir said, his manner distant, as if he were lost in thought. “Not bad at all.”
“I feel compelled to disagree,” Data said. “Everything we know about Thirty-one suggests they would have no qualms about sacrificing any of their operatives or directors in order to achieve their goals. There is no reason to think that anyone they employ is so valuable to them that threatening such a person would persuade them to give up custody of Ms. Douglas.”
Logic and facts did nothing to assuage Bashir’s fixation on this new idea. “You’re right. Thirty-one doesn’t give a damn about its people. It considers everyone expendable.” He picked up a padd from a nearby end table and turned its screen full of Uraei’s command strings toward Data. “But not this.” He held up one hand to stave off Data’s next protest. “Think about it. They never came at us li
ke this before. Not until after we got our hands on a decompiled copy of Uraei. The moment we acquired this, we became Thirty-one’s most wanted. So? We ransom this. We tell Thirty-one we’ll trade our only copy of the code for Sarina.”
Data’s jaw tensed, and a frown creased his brow. “I cannot conceive a scenario in which that plan will work, Doctor. In fact, to be truthful, I am unable to imagine a scenario in which an attempt at an exchange results in anything other than Ms. Douglas’s death as well as your own.”
The criticism only stoked Bashir’s excitement. “That doesn’t matter, Data! I have no intention of handing over Uraei. The whole point is just to get Sarina back out in the open.”
Frustrated and annoyed, Ozla jammed her pen into the crease of her notebook and slapped its cover shut. “Doctor, have you thought any of this through? Why would Thirty-one ever agree to such a stupid demand? Why would they give up a high-value prisoner in exchange for something they already have?”
Her argument left him stymied for a few seconds.
Then he smiled. “You’re right. The first thing we’d have to do is take Uraei away from them. Find a way to purge this core string of code from systems all over the Federation. Without it, Uraei can’t function. It would be deaf, dumb, and blind.” The smile became a grin. “Our little code patch would be worth sparing Sarina’s life then, wouldn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” Data said. “But such a purge would be exceedingly difficult, for a variety of reasons. And it might inflict widespread collateral damage—not least because it would cripple the firmware and root kits of countless systems on hundreds of worlds and thousands of ships.”
“So be it,” Bashir said, like a man who had abandoned reason in the name of victory. “This is war. Uraei put those lives in its crosshairs, so let it answer for the blood that spills.”
A sad nod of resignation was all Data offered in return. “Very well. Shakti and I will look into a universal code purge. You and I will speak again after I run some simulations.”