Architects of Infinity

by Kirsten Beyer

  “Do you see it?” Patel asked.

  “I’m not sure. See what?”

  “The unique carved stones beneath the surface?”

  As soon as she had pointed it out, he did.

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “This pool is actually a stepwell.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s a kind of large well carved into deep canyons. But there are no other similar formations in any of the other biodomes. This site is unique, and the formation suggests it might have been created for a special purpose.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been analyzing the sensor feeds all day,” Patel said quickly, as if that were a normal thing for her to have done. “This is going to be our team’s research site, and I want to get a jump on our analysis.”

  “So we can spend most of our time when we arrive on the beach relaxing beside that massive freshwater lake in Biodome 10?” Lasren asked hopefully.

  “Of course not. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing, Devi. I just spent two shifts compiling data as fast as our sensors could spit it out. Personally I’m looking forward to the rest-and-relaxation portion of our mission more than the work. You might want to think about fun ways to reduce stress yourself.”

  “I’m not stressed,” she insisted.

  “Right now, Commander Torres could use you to power the warp reactor.”

  Devi sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. “Forgive me for wanting to be prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?”

  “We can’t screw this up, Lasren,” Patel insisted.

  “We haven’t even arrived at the planet and already we’re screwing something up?”

  “We’re only going to have a few days to sort this out. This is the strongest potential evidence I’ve seen of the species that constructed these biodomes. Wells like this sometimes contain water displacement mechanisms. If we can find it, we can drain the well and see what else is down there. Otherwise we’ll be forced to dive in order to search for underground access to the caverns connected to this well. We have to be ready.”

  “Can’t we just use EV suits?”

  “They’re not the greatest under water. Regulation dive gear will be easier and quicker and everyone on our team is certified.”

  Lasren set his spoon down beside his soup, pushed the padd back toward Devi, and leaned back. He had known Devi for four years. They weren’t particularly close but shared a healthy respect for each other’s abilities. It was flattering, in a way, that she was seeking out his counsel. But he couldn’t shake the sense that she was seeking to exert control over something rapidly slipping through her fingers.

  Patel’s short black hair framed her face closely, giving it the illusion of greater length than width. With her chin tilted down and her eyebrows lifted, her head almost seemed to come to an unnatural point.

  “I have to be honest with you, Devi. You’re freaking me out a little.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. It’s just . . . I spoke with Commander Paris earlier today. I asked specifically to be assigned to the same away team as you and Ensigns Jepel and Vincent.”

  “Why does it matter what away team you’re on?”

  “I don’t care about the team as much as our research site. I’ve looked at most of the others, and while there are some intriguing formations, this is the one with the greatest potential for discovery. Every single biodome contains at least one water source, but none of them look like this one. The water lines vary between half a meter and two meters below the surface of the pools, but this one is almost twenty meters down.”

  “Maybe it has receded slowly over time.”

  “If it could recede, whatever atmospheric process evaporating it would long ago have rendered it dry without a natural underground source replenishing it. We’ll have to wait until we reach the surface to scan for those, but I don’t think we’re going to find them. I believe this is the well’s natural level.”

  “What exactly do you think is down there?”

  “Look at the compositional scans,” Patel suggested.

  Lasren did so and immediately saw what had likely piqued her interest.

  “There’s more Sevenofninonium beneath the surface of that well than in any other biodome. The water is hiding it. We have to figure out how to get to it,” Patel insisted.

  “First of all, we’re not calling it that.”

  “You prefer UI791116PJ4702700001?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “We have to call it something. Just tell me what you want to call it, and I’ll add it to our mission schedule.”

  “The thing is, a new element is interesting, but this one isn’t of any practical use to us. We’re probably going to collect as many samples as we can closer to the surface and call it a day, right?”

  “Don’t you see that this is our chance?” Patel insisted, raising her voice enough to attract a few curious stares from the other officers hurrying through their own dinners.

  Lasren liked Patel. She was a devoted scientist and usually quite pleasant to work with. She took her job seriously and was quick to provide expert analysis. But in the four years they had served together, he had never seen her like this.

  “Devi, talk to me. Forget the planet and the biodome and the water levels for a second. Where is this sudden sense of urgency coming from? This isn’t a test. You can’t fail.”

  Patel looked away for a moment, then shook her head quickly, as if she had fought and lost a battle with herself.

  “We’re never going to have another opportunity like this,” she finally said. “If this were any other away mission, Kim, Seven, and maybe Commander Torres would be heading down to the surface to analyze the area. Gwyn might get lucky and get to go along if they wanted to use shuttles rather than the transporters. And if there was a new intelligent life-form there, you might be asked to use your psionic abilities to add to the data collected. But I would be stuck on the bridge collating Seven’s data, and whatever we eventually learned would be added to her already brilliant service record.

  “I don’t think anyone else has seen this yet. And I’ll bet you anything that if they do, we’ll be pulled off this site so more senior officers can investigate it. I don’t want that to happen. If we do a thorough enough evaluation now, by the time the captain figures out what’s really there, we’ll still be the best team to do the work.”

  Lasren leaned forward. He understood. The complex cocktail of emotions he was sensing from Devi had more to do with fear than stress. She was afraid of being overlooked. She knew she could find the right answer, but in a sea of a thousand students it didn’t matter unless she found it first.

  In a way it made sense. Her work on Voyager had been a great deal more interesting and her responsibilities more defined before Seven had joined the fleet. Lasren didn’t give much thought to personal advancement. It was enough for him to be a member of the alpha-shift bridge crew. He’d had a few really interesting and terrifying encounters already on this mission, and that was more than enough excitement for the adventurer in him. He’d also been one of the few officers singled out for promotion since the fleet had launched. Until now, he’d never imagined that Devi resented her status, or was withering away as her skills went unnoticed or underutilized.

  Tired as he was, he wanted to help her, if only to banish the specter of that sea of unhappy children and their math problems.

  “You’re probably right,” he finally conceded. “This is a rare moment for us. And I promise you, as soon as I’ve had a few hours of sleep, I’ll make sure that our scans tomorrow give us better resolution of this, what did you call it?”

  “Stepwell.”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  “A number of ancient Earth civilizations utilized them. It’s weird to see something so similar here. Many of the ones we know about conceal vast networks of tunnels carved into the surrounding rocks. Their purpose was of
ten ceremonial, but I have no idea if that’s what we’re seeing here.”

  Lasren smiled gently. “Don’t worry. We’ll find out together.”

  After a moment, Patel returned his smile ever so faintly.

  “Good.”

  • • •

  Michael Owen Paris slept soundly in his mother’s arms, despite the scene currently under way in his family’s living room. B’Elanna Torres had once replicated an antique television set for her husband, Tom Paris. Most evenings, the entire Paris family could be found seated before it sharing popcorn and marveling at what passed for entertainment a few hundred years ago.

  Not tonight.

  The television and the rest of the room’s furnishings had all been shoved unceremoniously against the bulkheads to make room for a Starfleet-issue, self-constructing domical surface shelter.

  When B’Elanna and her father had gone camping with her cousins in summers long past, their tents had been smaller and harder to build. Tom had decided this should be a learning experience for their four-year-old daughter, Miral, so he had deactivated the autonomous set-up protocol, removed the spring poles and guide ropes, and was attempting to show his daughter how to construct a tent without the aid of modern technology.

  Torres wanted to take Michael to his crib and join Tom and Miral on the floor. But she was enjoying watching Tom too much as he tried to extricate himself from the mess he’d made.

  Miral was proving to be a quick study with the spring-loaded poles.

  “Look out, Daddy,” she warned as she pressed the small release at the base of a pole and watched it double in length with a loud, satisfying snap. The first time she had discovered this capability, the pole had snapped open into Tom’s midsection. Miral had appeared momentarily stricken at the sight of her father’s pain, but her concern quickly morphed into peals of delighted laughter.

  Tom was underneath the silver fabric, careening about as he searched for the slits from which he had removed the poles. His mumbled, frustrated monologue was only half-audible. The half Torres couldn’t hear was probably unsuitable for their children’s ears.

  “Now where the . . . I just had it . . . hang on, hang on, okay, Miral, call off the dogs, I found it, honey . . .”

  Tom’s head poked out through the entrance flap.

  “Hand me that pole, sweetie, and come here.”

  Miral did as she had been instructed, disappearing underneath the tent with her father.

  “Where are the dogs, Daddy?”

  “What?”

  “You said there were dogs in here.”

  “No, that was just an expression. Here you go. Put that pole in this opening and . . .”

  A distinct ripping sound paused his instructions.

  “Oh, come on,” Paris said, clearly frustrated.

  Torres stifled her laughter, placing a hand firmly over her mouth.

  “What happened, Daddy? Are you okay?”

  The moment Tom had laid eyes on Biodome 10, he had decided that as much time as duty would allow was going to be spent with his family, camping beside that large lake. The water was unusually still, excellent for giving Miral her first swimming lessons. A forest—for want of a better word—wrapped around the northern edge of the lake and continued for several miles. The growths weren’t made of wood, they were soft metal. Numerous bands were braided together in thick trunks and some of them extended as high as twenty meters in the air. Thinner branch-like extensions burst from the tops, bending gracefully and providing minimal shade. The place beckoned to the explorer in both of them, and Miral was over the moon at the thought of the days to come.

  The nights were going to get pretty cold, however, if Tom insisted on building their tent rather than relying on the genius of the Starfleet officers who had gone before him.

  “I’m going to replicate sleeping bags for all of us,” Torres said.

  “Make mine purple, Mommy,” Miral commanded from beneath the tent.

  “I can do that.”

  “And make Michael’s yellow.”

  “But you hate yellow. What makes you think he will like it?” Tom asked.

  “He can have the yellow so I don’t have to.”

  “Do you think he likes yellow?”

  “He likes bananas.”

  At this, Torres’s heart broke a little. For most of Miral’s young life she had been unable to properly pronounce “banana,” instead calling them gunana or bugunana. That little Miral-ism, along with a hundred others, was vanishing as her language skills increased daily.

  “He’s not old enough to like bananas, honey.”

  “He will like them. Can I give him a banana?”

  “Not for another few months,” Torres said. “For now, he just needs milk. And he doesn’t need his own sleeping bag.”

  “Hang on, is this the groundsheet?” Tom asked.

  The door chime sounded, and Torres rose from the sofa and moved to open the door manually. Miral had recently discovered the floor sensors inside and outside the door and had almost broken the mechanism standing with one foot on each side, so Torres had deactivated it, hoping her daughter would soon lose interest in the game.

  Icheb stood in the hallway, and Torres greeted him cheerfully, hoping to make up a little for her testiness that morning. While reviewing his reports she had learned that, to his credit, his theory about Vesta’s replicator had been proven right.

  “Good evening, Commander.”

  “Come on in, Icheb. Good catch, by the way, with that lot of gel packs.”

  “Thank you, Commander.” After a pause that threatened to become uncomfortable, he asked, “I don’t wish to upset you, but many of our engineers are wondering if there is any word on Lieutenant Conlon’s status?”

  Torres bowed her head and inhaled deeply. For a few brief hours, she’d managed to forget that one of her closest friends had almost died the previous day. At least she knew. How frustrating must it be for those who cared about Conlon but weren’t part of the small group that received regular updates.

  “Yesterday was a bad day,” Torres finally said. “She pulled through, but it’s going to be several weeks at least before we have a new prognosis.”

  “And before we see her again?”

  “Most likely.”

  Icheb nodded. “I understand. Thank you for telling me.”

  “Of course. I’ll make an announcement tomorrow. And the next time I see her, I’ll make sure she knows that everyone is pulling for her.”

  Despite the implied dismissal, Icheb remained rooted where he stood.

  “Was there something else?”

  “Um . . . Commander Paris wished to see me.”

  “Oh. Sure. Tom, Icheb is here.”

  A loud rustling was followed by the emergence of her husband from the folds of silver fabric.

  “Hey, Icheb.”

  “Sir.”

  Several minutes of fabric friction had left Tom’s fine, light-brown hair standing on end. Icheb pretended not to notice.

  “That’s a good look for you, honey,” Torres said before heading toward Michael’s bedroom.

  “Can I be of any assistance?” she heard Icheb ask.

  Miral clearly remained under the silver mess of the tent and could be heard, lurching around, randomly calling out, “Here, puppy. Here, puppy, puppy.”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got it,” Paris said, though nothing could have been further from the truth in his wife’s opinion. Torres returned, her arms empty, and set about retrieving the poles Miral had stacked in a small cord and carried them under the fabric.

  Tom and Icheb’s conversation was muffled as Torres set to work. After convincing Miral to sit in the center of the ground sheet holding the poles, she spread the rest of the fabric out, quickly located the pole slits, and threaded the poles back into them. She untangled the guide ropes and had Miral carry them out the front opening, which was now discernable, if not fully extended. Finally she located the autoconstruct mechanism over the door flap a
nd reactivated it. Instructing Miral to stand back, Torres allowed her to depress the remote activator and, with a crack, the domical tent snapped to full extension.

  Miral gave her mother an enthusiastic round of applause and a tight squeeze around the knees before rushing into what would likely be her quarters until they reached DK-1116.

  “What the . . . ?” Paris asked.

  He stood before the perfect tent, hands on his hips.

  “You’re welcome,” his wife said.

  “I was going to finish that.”

  “And now you don’t have to. You can get right to the playing in it. Just promise me, no campfires until we’re on the surface.”

  “Daddy, can we pull the TV in here?” Miral asked from inside.

  Paris shrugged. “Can we?”

  “Sure. Hey, what did you need with Icheb?”

  “Nothing. Roach advised me that one of his officers requested Icheb for their exploratory team, but I confirmed he’s going to have the majority of alpha shifts in Voyager’s engine room while we’re in orbit.”

  Torres nodded. She had privately planned to make sure Icheb got a few days rest on the surface, but without Nancy that was going to be hard to do.

  Hard, but not impossible.

  “Honey, did Roach mention who made the request?”

  “Uh, Bryce, I think? He wanted Icheb to join the team of engineers studying the biodome field generators.”

  “Bryce?”

  “Yeah.”

  Torres playfully smacked the side of Tom’s head.

  “Hey!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was Bryce?”

  “Because, who cares?”

  “First thing in the morning, you let Roach know that Icheb will be assigned to that team. I’ll cover the engine room while you’re on rotation, and we’ll still spend the evenings and off-shifts camping with the kids.”