The woman shook her head. “So old ...” she whispered, her voice heavy with regret.
The archeologist, oblivious, went on with his discourse. “The materials composing the object are unusual,” he continued, “but nothing terribly exotic. The people who built this artifact probably possessed a technological ability similar to our own.”
When he spoke next, however, his voice became solemn and thoughtful. “Of course, what’s truly significant is not the object itself,” he said softly, looking again at his guests, “but what we found inside.”
“Can you do it, Beverly?”
Dr. Crusher sat back in her chair and studied the information displayed on her padd. “I think so, Jean-Luc,” she said after a moment. “But I do wish I had more time.”
Picard nodded. “I know. But there’s not much that can be done about that. According to Data’s best estimates, we have only twenty to twenty-five hours before the wormhole collapses. We just have to work with what time we have.”
He smiled at his chief medical officer. “I don’t want you to feel pressured, Beverly. It’s just that your contribution to this project is ...” He paused and then continued in a deadpan voice, “... the key to the success of the whole venture.”
[167] Dr. Crusher laughed. “Thanks for not making me feel pressured!”
She smiled and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, Jean-Luc, I’ve already finished most of the preliminary preparations. As soon as you give me your part of the job, I can really get to work.”
She set her padd on the table. “Of course,” she added, “the ones really responsible for the success of this plan are the brass upstairs. Has Starfleet Command given you the go-ahead?”
“Yes,” Picard replied, “I just received their approval a short while ago. As you might imagine, my proposal was given very close scrutiny.” He shook his head. “I can’t say I blame them. If this thing isn’t done correctly, the consequences could potentially be ...”
Dr. Crusher finished his thought. “Catastrophic?”
Picard’s face suddenly turned solemn. His gaze became focused, as if he were looking off across a great distance.
“Yes—precisely. If our ‘package’ is opened prematurely, some very important choices might never be made.”
Beverly Crusher got up and went to stand next to the captain. “Don’t worry; there’s nothing to be concerned about.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Your plan, as usual, is flawless. And who else but you would think to make such a wonderful gesture?”
Picard’s eyes twinkled at the compliment. “Thank you, Beverly. I appreciate your confidence. And, after all, my concerns probably are unwarranted. The chances that my ‘gesture’ will be received at all are remote in the extreme.”
He gave her an affectionate smile. “Good doctor, not only [168] are you an accomplished physician, but you make a skilled ship’s counselor as well.”
“Thank you.” Beverly grinned. “I’ll let Troi know she can retire.”
Picard laughed and then reached over and tapped the doctor’s padd. “And now, I think, it’s time I leave you to your work. Besides, there’s one other member of this team I need to look in on.”
Geordi La Forge stood up from the photon torpedo casing he was working on and faced Captain Picard. “I’ll be ready on this end, Captain, no problem,” he said. “The necessary modifications are fairly straightforward.”
He patted the smooth torpedo casing. “I’m confident my team and I have found a way to keep your ‘package’ intact This is one note in a bottle that just might be found.”
“Thank you, Geordi,” said Picard. “I hoped that your job wouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Doctor Crusher’s the one with the real engineering job,” said La Forge, a hint of concern in his voice. “Will she be ready on time?”
“She assures me she will,” replied Picard, “if I can stay out of her hair long enough to let her get some work done.”
La Forge grinned, then crouched back down next to the torpedo casing. “Well, as soon as Doctor Crusher is ready on her end, I can get started.”
Picard smiled at his chief engineer. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.” He nodded approvingly. “Let me know when the modifications are complete.”
Picard left engineering and stepped into the turbolift. As the door slid quietly closed, he rubbed his hands together. [169] “And now,” he said thoughtfully to the empty lift, “all that’s left is for me to do my part.”
Removed from his duties and his crew, the captain of the Enterprise sat alone in his ready room, his mind focused in thought.
For a long time he sat, motionless, mentally revising and rehearsing. At last, when he felt completely satisfied with his efforts, he rose to his feet and walked to the center of the room. Straightening his uniform, he stood silently for a moment, composing himself.
“Computer,” he said finally, drawing a deep breath, “begin recording.” Then, in a voice clear and strong, Jean-Luc Picard began to speak.
The tall archeologist looked at the black object on the table, reflecting for a moment. Then he turned to face the two elderly scientists standing at his side.
“When we conducted our initial scans of the object’s interior,” he said, “we found nothing. The ...” he searched for a word, “capsule appeared to be merely an empty shell. Aside from being the obvious artifact of a sentient species, it seemed to have no real information to offer. Just an empty casing—with the contents long gone.”
He looked at the woman at his side. “But when one of our more perceptive and seasoned scientists”—he smiled at the elderly man—“suggested we run a more comprehensive bioscan, we detected minute amounts of organic matter.”
“The DNA strands,” said the woman.
He nodded. “The DNA strands.”
“Those strands of nucleic acid,” he continued, “were [170] perfectly preserved by a material coating the object’s interior. Initially, we believed that this preserved DNA might have come from cells—skin cells, perhaps—that were inadvertently deposited by someone originally working on the object. Quite a fortunate find for us, we thought.”
He smiled at his two guests. “But then a more thorough examination showed that the strands didn’t contain nearly enough DNA to represent an organism’s complete genome. They appeared to be merely unrelated sequences of nucleic acids.”
His next words were spoken slowly and with emphasis. “Had we made this discovery at any point in the past, even as little as half a century ago, the genetic material would have told us little.” The tall archeologist looked appreciatively into the eyes of the woman at his side. “But of course, thanks to you, we no longer view DNA as merely a carrier of genetic information.”
The scientist gestured to one of his colleagues and she handed him a small device. “Just before your arrival,” he said, “we finished translating the DNA fragments into the algorithms of a computer program. A holographic computer program.”
He turned and gently placed the device into the hands of the elderly woman. “This computer has been loaded,” the archeologist said, “with that very program.” He smiled warmly at her. “All that remains is for someone to run it.”
The old scientist looked at the device resting in her hands. She turned to her longtime friend, her face overcome with wonder.
“Go ahead,” her friend said softly, his eyes twinkling. “You’ve earned this moment.”
[171] She smiled back at him and looked once more at the computer in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she placed one trembling finger on the computer. She looked once more at the assembled scientists around her, smiled thoughtfully to herself, and then with one quick motion activated the program.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the air in front of her shimmered and focused to form the image of a being. No, not just a being—a man, with a shape much like her own.
But it was not the familiar shape of his body that drew her gaze but his remarkable face.
Despite its alien features, it was the face of a leader, a face of wisdom and compassion.
The woman took a step forward. “So different,” she said softly, “yet so much the same.” Instinctively, she stretched out her hand to touch the image.
But before she could complete the gesture, in a voice rich and unforgettable, the man began to speak:
“My name,” he said, “is Jean-Luc Picard. If you can see and hear me, then you were successful in discovering the genetic program that we sent back to you. That program—the program you now watch—was modeled after one my race and others recently discovered: the message that your people placed in our genes so long ago.”
The image paused and the man’s warm, gray eyes seemed to look straight into her soul.
“I wish we could speak together,” he continued, “but my people and I lie more than four billion years in your future. All I can offer you is our gratitude for the gift that you once bestowed upon us. For the galaxy is now home to countless [172] intelligent species, species who now know of your existence, the firstborn ones. You have my deepest promise: you will not be forgotten. ...”
The excavation site was empty; the others were long gone. Only the woman remained, standing in silence, her face wet with tears. She had no words to speak, for no words could express the sense of fulfillment that now filled her heart.
For a lifetime she had worked, hoping to leave something of her people and of herself, for those who might come later. She had cast a message into the sea of time, and against all her hopes and expectations, that message had been received.
In the years that remained to her, she would often give thanks to the universe that had seen fit to so benevolently reward her labors. But her deepest gratitude she would always reserve for a man: a man who had come to her from a far distant future, a man she would never meet.
A man named Jean-Luc Picard.
Calculated Risk
Christina F. York
Dr. Katherine Pulaski watched as Lieutenant Reg Barclay wormed his thin frame beneath the Debakey’s medical transporter console. Although she could no longer see his narrow face, she could clearly picture the frown of concentration that wrinkled his forehead, and his tightly pursed lips.
Barclay wasn’t what she expected when she’d requested a transporter engineer from the Enterprise. She’d expected Chief O’Brien, but Captain Picard sent her Barclay. He’d said he couldn’t spare O’Brien, but she was beginning to think he just wanted to get rid of Barclay for a while.
She could hear Barclay muttering to himself, though she could discern no actual words. A piece of the metal case clanged ominously, and the muttering became louder, followed by a yelp of surprise, or pain.
“Are you okay under there?” With an effort, she kept her voice level. Barclay had been recalibrating the transporter all afternoon, and it was now well past the dinner hour. Pulaski didn’t like untried treatments, and this one would be particularly delicate. She ran her hands through her short, dark copper curls, clenching her fists for a moment in frustration.
[174] “J-just a few more minutes, Doctor.” Barclay’s voice was muffled by the console, but the confidence in his tone was clear. At least he thought he was getting close to finishing.
Patience, she told herself. Just be patient a little longer. She almost laughed out loud. Katherine Pulaski had many fine qualities—intelligence, a sense of humor, the ability to quickly and dispassionately analyze a critical medical problem—but patience was not among them. It was, she had come to realize, the reason she was assigned temporarily as chief surgeon of the medical ship Debakey, but would never be her captain.
Barclay slid from beneath the console, a calibration meter clenched in his fist. “Got it,” he told her, rising to his feet. He was taller than the doctor, and he unconsciously stooped to look her in the eye. He appeared troubled.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
“Nooo.” His denial lingered, more a question than a statement.
“Something is bothering you. What is it?”
He hesitated, then continued. “Do you think this is right? I mean, I know what it’s like to be in love.”
“Really, Lieutenant?”
“Yes. I was in love with Deanna Troi, back on the Enterprise.”
She cocked an eyebrow in question. “Was?” Her emphasis on the past tense brought a faint blush to Barclay’s face.
“Things didn’t work out. Of course that was before I was in love with Doctor Crusher. ...” his voice trailed off.
Pulaski started to reply, but he quickly regained his composure. “But I know it was love, Doctor. When it happens, you know. Just like I did with Ensign MacGregor.”
[175] She shook her head in wonder. He really believed what he was saying. “All I really want to know, Lieutenant, is whether this thing,” she waved a hand at the transporter, “is ready.”
“It is.”
“Good.” Pulaski turned and ran her fingers over the controls. “I want this checked out thoroughly. Run it through a complete set of diagnostics, and triple-check the results. And I want it now.”
Barclay slid in front of her, subtly forcing her away from the console. He spread his arms to the sides of the panel, as though to hold the controls for himself. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, caressing the keypads. “I used to hate transporters. Didn’t want to be anywhere near the blasted things. Now, though,” he slid a finger along a row of indicator lights, “now, they fascinate me. I could spend hours tracing their circuits.”
You just spent hours. Pulaski bit back the retort. It shouldn’t matter how long he took to set up the machine. What should, and did, matter was that it was completely ready when she sent the Prescotts through.
It wasn’t just this technology, she reminded herself, as she walked the corridors of the medical ship. It was the pathogen itself. An olfactory neural stimulator was how Starfleet Medical had described it when they ordered the Debakey to Cygnus IV. A pathogen that attacked the olfactory nerves and produced intense emotional reactions.
What it was, Pulaski had concluded, was a love potion. Never mind that love potions and aphrodisiacs were the stuff of myths. Hell, after three failed marriages, she wasn’t even sure she believed in love, much less love potions.
[176] Nevertheless, the evidence was clear Six months ago, Dr. David Prescott and Dr. Laura Prescott had requested reassignment from the science station on Cygnus IV. Separate reassignment. And they had announced to Starfleet their intention to get a divorce. They even had a preliminary separation agreement, and they established separate quarters on the remote outpost.
When the relief ship arrived, however, the Prescotts refused to beam aboard, or to accept their reassignments. They spent every possible minute together and talked incessantly of each other when they were apart. They acted for all the universe like teenagers with a first crush, rather than partners in a crumbling twenty-three-year marriage.
Pulaski stopped outside the isolation chamber where the Prescotts were housed. It was the only way she could get them aboard the Debakey. There was no way she wanted the pathogen to spread, and she had so far been unable to isolate the method of transmission.
Even though the chamber had an isolation field, Pulaski took the extra precaution of a protective suit and breather. Not that it mattered for her. With her past, she figured she was immune to love potions, or Cupid’s arrows, or whatever it was that brought people together.
The Prescotts were sitting side by side on a small bench when she entered the chamber, fingers entwined. They talked in low voices, and the intimate tone sent a pang through Pulaski.
She cleared her throat, the sound echoing tinnily in the breather filter. She hated the distortion a breather gave her words. Laura Prescott looked up and offered a distracted smile.
[177] “Look, David.” She patted her husband on the arm. “Doctor Pulaski’s here.”
David Prescott turned and sketched a wave in her direction, obviously unwilling to take
his attention from his wife. Pulaski greeted them, and sat in a chair next to the containment field.
“Doctor Prescott. Doctor Prescott.” How forbidding that sounded. She was supposed to be a counselor, for heaven’s sake! “David. Laura. It’s good to see you again. I hope you’re comfortable here. I’m afraid the accommodations aren’t plush, but they were the best we could do on short notice.”
“No problem, Doctor, as long as we’re together.” Laura smiled up at David, who gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and nodded in agreement.
Maybe Barclay was right Maybe it would be better to simply beam these two back down to Cygnus IV, and leave them alone in their apparent bliss.
But she couldn’t do that The pathogen was dangerous. It had distracted two dedicated scientists from important observation and research. If it spread, the implications were monstrous. The Cardassians could sit back and wait for the Federation to wither and die.
Pulaski took a deep, calming breath. David and Laura had to commit to the treatment. She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them.
“Good. Now it’s decision time. Lieutenant Barclay is checking the modifications to the diagnostic biofilter, and he believes the transporter will be ready for you within the next couple hours.” She keyed a recorder, and asked in an overly formal tone, “Do you, Doctor David Prescott and Doctor [178] Laura Prescott, consent to the experimental transporter filter treatment?”
Laura nodded, and David grinned at her. Realizing her error, she slapped playfully at his shoulder, and spoke aloud. “Doctor Laura Prescott, ID #466549J-C. I hereby consent to treatment.”
David did the same. Pulaski felt a flood of relief, a release of tension she hadn’t realized was there. Somewhere deep down, she had been afraid they would change their minds at the last minute. She switched off the recorder.
STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds II Page 15